


The War Rages On

by HandsintheStars



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Giving Birth, Happy Ending, M/M, Mates, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Sad Lance (Voltron), Stillbirth, Suicide Attempt, Trying For A Baby, klance, pregnant Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 07:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 78,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12316827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandsintheStars/pseuds/HandsintheStars
Summary: They fell in love because of the war around them.Because of his Galra background, Keith was able to get pregnant, so he and Lance tried for a baby.The first baby died from a Galra attackThe second baby died from another Galra attackNot wanting to lose anymore, Keith and Lance decided to give up.What happens when Keith finds out he's pregnant again with a third child? Will this one die too?Is it worth getting excited over when both of them know that this same war that brought them together was going to keep getting their babies killed? They work hard to protect this one this time.





	1. The First Baby

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try something new, so I'm trying out mpreg
> 
> There are sensitive subjects in this story, so read at your own risk

**CHAPTER ONE**

**The First Baby**

* * *

 

     “With a team bond as strong as yours, you two have found all you need in a possible mate! Why don’t you just settle down with each other?” were Coran’s exact words that inspired Keith and Lance to finally accept their deeper feelings for each other and create a bond between each other that would help them get through this war without feeling so alone. 

They decided to go through with such a thing to make their love lives a little less miserable, feeling more like temporary friends-with-benefits in space at first until their minor attraction for each other turned into a passionate love. It took a few years, but as the war with Zarkon waged on, they came to terms with the fact that they couldn’t live without each other and officially became true mates. 

It was four months in when they found out that Keith was already pregnant. Both elated and feeling more than ready to have a little one roaming around the castle to make them feel like they had more of a home on the ship, they welcomed the idea fairly quickly. 

Galra pregnancies had shorter terms than human pregnancies, cutting the pregnancy time in half. Though Keith was growing bigger faster even with just one child inside him, he didn’t let his pleasant situation drag the team down. 

He and Lance were still the best duo on the team and throughout space. Keith didn’t have much of a problem with morning sickness anymore and the baby was thankfully not resting on his bladder and making it a problem for him to pee every few seconds, so he was able to complete missions as the red paladin just as gracefully and successfully as he did before. 

    “Keith, no offense, but shouldn’t you start staying back in the castle?” Pidge asked, looking at Keith as he put on his armor that was always changing nowadays to fit his belly size. 

Keith rolled his eyes and finished putting on his armor, “I’m perfectly fine, Pidge! My due date isn’t for another two weeks so I’m good to do this mission.”

     “Two weeks?” Hunk squeaked out, looking over to Lance. “Do you know how bad our luck has been lately? With how things are going now, I can already predict that he is going to somehow go into labor at the worst time on this mission.”

     “Don’t jinx me!” Keith called out as Lance walked over to him. 

He wrapped an arm around his pregnant mate and gestured to his swollen belly, “Little Zarkon Killer 3000 is going to come out of Keith’s womb kicking ass, so it will be a good thing! Don’t you worry.”

Keith pushed Lance away, feel uncomfortable to the contact at the moment, “Zarkon Killer 3000 is not going to be our daughter’s name. She will be Juliet. We discussed this,” he sighed and turned to the group, “But I do agree with Lance. You have nothing to worry about! This planet doesn’t even have the Galra on it anyways.”

Shiro sighed, finally butting into the argument amongst the paladins, “It is too late to tell Keith no for now, but I do think Keith, you should start staying back just in case the baby does decide to come early, alright?”

Both Keith and Lance looked to each other and sighed, pouting and nodding their heads reluctantly, “Fine…”

Without much more of a discussion on that topic, the team got into their lions and flew down to a current planet in alliance with voltron. It was filled with aliens that were no more than half the size of all of the paladins - except for Pidge - and the whole mission was going to be short and sweet in Lance’s terms. 

They landed on the grassy plains of the planet right outside of the cobblestone city full of cheering aliens. Getting out of their lions, Lance and Keith were quick to regroup, holding hands as they walked into the welcoming city together. 

The paladins made their way to the castle to have dinner and discuss their alliance with the rulers of the planet. Keith and Lance couldn’t help but nuzzle against each other even at the dinner table, unable to keep their hands off each other even when Shiro leaned over to Lance to tell them that now was not the time to coo over how they were going to have their little one in less than a month. 

Shiro’s words were taken back though when the topic of the conversation did switch to Keith’s pregnancy by the queen herself, fascinated by him being able to go on a mission so far into the pregnancy. 

     “You must be so proud to have life inside of you. I understand your wanting to go to as many planets as you can to show this off. I probably will too when I start to show,” the queen smiled, leaning on her hands as she stared at Keith’s stomach. 

Keith glowed with pride and grinned, “You are pregnant too? How far along are you?”

     “Just a month,” she smiled, looking down at her stomach. “This is a reason why I am wanting to make sure that Zarkon is defeated once and for all so my little one can grow up in a world without fear.”

     “That is exactly why I am fighting as well,” Keith smiled, eyes widening when he felt the baby kick. He stood up a bit, holding his stomach as he laughed under his breath, “Juliet is getting rowdy.”

Lance looked up at him, starting to get up as well, “Are you ok, baby? Should we go back to the lions?”

Keith shook his head and placed a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “Nah, I just need fresh air for a few minutes. Carry on.”

He kissed Lance on the cheek and stepped away from the dinner, walking outside to the castle balcony to look out at the medieval looking city down below. There were a few wild supporters of voltron still standing outside the castle and cheering, but most of them had gone back to their daily life for now. He sighed and watched everyone, the wind blowing on him just enough to cool him off and also not make his hair fly everywhere. He closed his eyes and rubbed his stomach, sighing out, “When this war is over, you are going to love Earth, my dear. I didn’t really like it when I was down there before, but with you and your dad, I’m sure I’ll love it a whole lot more.”

There was rumbling in the distance. Probably a storm. Keith hadn’t smelled the air before it rained in so long. He hoped he would be able to experience the storm before they had to go back up to the ship. 

He looked up at the sky to see the dark clouds he always enjoyed to see but realized that there were no dark clouds in the light blue sky. In fact, there were no clouds at all. 

Keith’s brows furrowed in worry as he looked around for what could be the source of the rumbling sound if it wasn’t thunder. He looked all around him up at the sky until his eyes landed on a Galra ship that had just entered into the atmosphere. 

His eyes widened and he looked inside to where Lance and the others were. He had to warn them! He ran inside as quickly as he could manage with his waddle and shouted out to everyone in a panic, “The Galra are here. They are about to fly over!

Lance’s eyes widened and he stood up and ran over to Keith, “Quick, Your Highness, is there any safe place where you and Keith can hide to wait out the attack? It will be quick if we can get to our lions in time.”

     “I have to get to my people!” The Queen started to say, and Keith also argued. 

     “No way am I hiding!” he pushed himself away from Lance, activating his bayard into a sword. “I’m fighting alongside you. We are a team, remember?”

Lance groaned and turned to Shiro, “Shiro, tell him he is not fighting this fight.”

     “You aren’t fighting this fight,” Shiro half tried. 

     “Yes I am,” Keith glared daggers at Shiro, stalking out of the castle with the queen to go warn the aliens in the city of the attack. 

When Lance raised his hands at Shiro in a pissed off pose, Shiro just shrugged and pulled his bayard out, “You should know by now that Keith doesn’t change his mind when he’s already decided on something.”

Before they could follow Keith outside, the whole castle shook as something that sounded like a bomb dropped on the city by the Galra ship that was already flying back into space with its mission completed. Lance’s eyes widened and he turned to the other three paladins in the room with him before running out after Keith and screaming out his name. 

     “Keith! Get back inside!” He shouted, running out into the fog of smoke that had already filled up the town. 

He couldn’t see past two feet in front of him, feeling his way down the stairs of the castle towards where Keith ran off to. 

     “Keith!” he shouted out his name again, feeling relieved when he saw the red glow of Keith’s sword through the smoke. 

He ran over to the glow and saw Keith swaying as he stood amongst a few fallen cobble stone rocks. He was looking down at the ground, eyes wide and mouth shut tight. He didn’t even notice Lance running towards him until Lance wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tightly, crying out, “We need to go back inside! Please, Keith, listen to me just this once.”

Lance tried to pull Keith in the direction of the castle, but Keith screamed out and punched him away, stumbling back and holding his stomach. 

     “What the hell?” Lance muttered out, confused why Keith was treating him so coldly. 

He stepped closer to ask what was wrong, but his eyes landed on Keith’s armor, completely shattered in the front of his stomach area, the broken pieces of his suit on the ground now. Keith’s hands were trembling and he leaned forward onto one of the boulders that had fallen and spread his legs slowly, pressing his hand up against his groin. 

     “Keith, what are you-!” Lance started to ask, but stopped in his tracks when he watched as Keith removed his trembling hand from between his legs to see that it was covered in blood. 

Keith let out a sob and Lance stepped forward, shaking his head, “No… No… No, you are fine. You probably just cut yourself down there, you are fine. Keith get up, we need to leave.”

He tried to take Keith's hand to make him move out of the smoke, but Keith snatched his hand away again and finally muttered out a cold, “She hasn’t moved. She was kicking non-stop until these stupid fucking rocks fell on me.”

Keith stood up straight and slammed his sword down on the rocks in front of him, screaming and crying out as loud as he could. Lance couldn’t help but start crying as well, thinking about what was happening right in front of his eyes. He grabbed Keith’s sword from his hands and tried to calm him down, “If we get you to a healing pod quickly, we can save the baby.”

     “Not if she is already dead,” Keith cried out, wrapping his arms around Lance and sobbing. “I can’t feel her… She isn’t with me anymore… She isn’t here! I need her back!”

He punched Lance’s back out of frustration, tightening the hug only to punch him again. Lance took every punch though, having armor on that made them feel like soft taps. Even if he had regular clothes on, he wouldn’t pay any mind to Keith’s punches of agony. He was too busy crying into the other boy’s shoulder. 

The other paladins caught up to them, not having to ask what happened for they could see right before them the disaster that struck. Lance looked back at them and made eye contact with Shiro, shaking his head and whispering out, “I’m taking him back to the castle.”

Though he knew what was going on, Shiro still had to ask, “Is the baby… Is Juliet alright?”

Keith’s breath hitched when he heard her name. He clenched his teeth and pushed past Lance, stumbling forward a few feet before needing him to balance again. He looked up at Shiro with tears in his eyes, “She’s…” he choked on his words, so he tried again, “She’s….”

He broke out into a sob and Lance’s started to usher Keith away from the paladins and towards the lions. There was nothing left to say. 

He flew Keith up to the castle in the blue lion, making a plan to get the red lion later when he was sure Keith was ok. He rushed Keith to the pod room, turning on his headset to tell Coran and Allura that they needed immediate assistance. 

The two Alteans ran into the pod room and rushed over to Keith, taking off his armor as they talked amongst each other to try to figure out what they were going to do if Keith really did lose the baby. Keith held his hand over his stomach, desperately trying to feel for movement, looking up at Lance and muttering out in a hoarse voice, “I should have listened to you… I killed her.”

     “You didn’t kill her,” Lance choked out, placing his hand over Keith’s. “Everything will be fine. Allura and Coran are going to bring her back, right?”

Coran and Allura both snapped their heads up, an apologetic expression cast upon both of their faces as they shook their heads slowly. Allura positioned herself in between Keith’s legs and conceded, “Keith I’m going to need you to stay strong for me for just a few more minutes. You are going to have to push the baby out of you before you can get into the pod.”

     “Is she alive?” Keith asked, sniffling and looking into Allura’s eyes with a hopeful but knowing look. 

She hesitated on her answer, looking down. 

     “Just tell me if she’s fucking alive or not!” Keith screamed out, fat tears falling from his eyes as Coran slowly pushed him down to keep his back on the ground. 

     “She’s dead,” Allura choked out, shutting her eyes tight. She sniffled and rubbed Keith’s stomach soothingly, “There is nothing we can do to save her.”

Keith had to push as hard as he could, screaming in agony and crying out for Lance to somehow make their baby be alive again. Lance was unable to do anything though, just sitting and watching through his tears as Keith pushed their already dead daughter out of him. What was the point of this? What was the point of anything anymore?

~(***)~

The next few weeks after Keith was out of the pod and they had buried their Juliet on the planet she died on, the paladins took a break from visiting planets. The whole point of visiting the planets was to see Voltron, but with two of their paladins in less than desired conditions, they decided a break was needed. 

Keith spent his days sitting in Juliet’s finished nursery, staring at what was going to be her crib. The whole room was shades of purple because she was a mix of her parents - blue and red. Lance came up with the idea, thinking it was clever, but now all the color did was make them both cry.

Keith hadn’t spoken since the miscarriage, only answering people in grunts and nods when they dared try to talk to him. The only person he allowed close to him was Lance, but even he wasn’t allowed to touch Keith yet. 

They would sit in their stillborn baby’s nursery for hours at a time, never saying anything to each other or even touching shoulders as they sat on the couch. They just stared at the open space in front of them, trying to imagine what they would be doing now if Juliet was still alive. In Keith’s case, he imagined what he would be doing right now if he hadn’t been so stupid to leave the castle when pregnant. 

At the end of the second week when Keith had barely left the nursery only to eat and shower, and he hadn’t spoken a word since the night he lost Juliet, Lance decided to finally talk to him. He sat down beside him on the couch and looked down at his hands, mustering up the courage to talk to his mate for the first time in two weeks, “This wasn’t your fault, Keith.”

There was no response. 

Lance leaned his head on Keith’s shoulder, expecting to be hit away. When that never happened though, he continued to speak, “Shiro says we have a mission in three days. Do you think you will be able go?”

     “Do I have a choice?” Keith croaked out, his voice raspy from not talking in so long. 

Lance closed his eyes, thankful that Keith was talking again. He shook his head and reached for Keith’s hand, managing to hold onto it before Keith could pull away, “All we are doing is visiting the aftermath of a Galra attack on one of our ally planets. It will be quick.”

Keith nodded his head, finally squeezing Lance’s hand back. He sniffled, “Lance, I feel so empty without her… I don’t even know what I’m good for anymore.”

     “You are the red paladin; a defender of the universe,” Lance gave the easy answer, though he knew that Keith wasn’t going to feel better with just that. 

     “No,” Keith shook his head, tears falling from his eyes. “This war may be really fucking long, but it will come to an end. I wanted to raise Juliet with you on Earth, but now… Now what will I be when everything is over?”

Lance kissed him on the cheek, letting his lips linger there before he answered him, “You will always be my mate, my husband… the love of my life.”

     “I…” Keith bit his lip and stared up at the crib again. “I want to try for a baby again. I know it is too soon, but I can’t stand not having something either inside of me or in my arms,” he turned to Lance, “This next one is going to survive.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he nodded his head quickly, “Of course. What happened before was a freak accident; this one has every chance to survive if we just keep you in the castle when you start to show.”

Keith nodded his head, “Then let’s try.”

     “Right now?” Lance asked, watching as Keith lifted one leg over on him to straddle him. 

Lance looked down to see that Keith still hadn’t worked off some of his pregnancy fat yet, his belly protruding out just a little bit. He had noticed Keith holding his hand over his stomach when they ate meals or he was just walking around, so the fat that made him still feel a little pregnant was like a minor coping mechanism for him. 

Keith unbuttoned Lance’s pants and then unzipped his own, holding his arms over Lance’s shoulders as he muttered out, “Let’s just make this quick…”

Knowing that this wasn’t supposed to be sex for pleasure, Lance hurried along the process by touching himself to make himself hard so Keith didn’t have to do it for him. Lance pulled lube out of his pocket that was leftover from the last time they had sex. It was a whole month ago, and they had sneaked out to a back room in the castle so no one would hear them as Lance eased Keith’s pregnant horniness. 

That time was enjoyable, unlike what was going on right now. Lance was just happy Keith was saying something though, so he didn’t care what the circumstances for this were. He just wanted Keith to be happy, so he was willing to do all he could to make him pregnant and have the baby survive this time. 

He watched as Keith rode him, moaning in pleasure but still so distant from what was going on emotionally. Every once in awhile, a moan would sound like a sob to the point where Lance couldn’t tell if Keith was enjoying this anymore or if he was suffering through every bit of it. Lance tried not to let it bother him though, knowing that the more he worried, the longer it would take for him to cum and achieve Keith’s goal. 

He let his head fall back as he finally cummed, filling Keith up. He hoped that this would work. There was no other way he knew how to help Keith.

Keith relaxed and laid his head down on Lance’s shoulder, sniffling and crying out, “I love you… And I promise I’ll get better.”

     “I have no doubt you will,” Lance smiled, wrapping his arms around Keith’s waist. 

After that, everything went back to being as normal as it could get with Keith and Lance losing their unborn daughter. The first time didn’t work, so Lance and Keith kept trying for another baby in between missions, enjoying their time together more and more with each time they tried. About a month had passed when Keith finally found the results positive on his pregnancy test. 

He ran out of the bathroom and held the wet stick in his hand, shouting out gleefully, “I’m pregnant!”

He jumped into Lance’s arms and sang out again, “Guess who is going to have a healthy baby in four months!”

     “Yes!” Lance cried out, hugging Keith lightly in order to be careful with the new baby, “I can’t wait to tell the others! We are going to finally have a family!”


	2. The Second Baby

Chapter Two

The Second Baby

* * *

 

Though now wasn’t the best time to get pregnant, the rest of the paladins, Coran, and Allura knew that this was what Keith needed in order to move on from Juliet, so they were nothing but supportive to the couple. 

Keith’s pregnancy this time around was a little bit harder when dealing with morning sickness and mood swings. He was more protective, only letting Lance touch his stomach and the other paladins on a good day. When the baby started kicking, he dropped out of the missions completely, not wanting to risk anything at all. He couldn’t have another tragedy like last time happen again. 

When Keith was about three months in, Lance and him found out that they were having a baby boy. They decided to keep the color scheme of the original baby room, but changed the name of Juliet that appeared around the room a few times to Steven, naming him after Keith’s father that died years ago. 

Hunk made sure to fix Keith meals that he could stomach even with the baby, modifying the food goo so it tasted like what Keith would crave at the time. Coran and Allura grew herbs for Keith to not feel nauseous, and Pidge made gadgets for the baby to have when it was born, such as: a sound creator that would calm him and keep him asleep and an automatic puppet show set that moved on its own. 

Keith was thankful for the support everyone gave him, growing more and more excited to finally have a baby he could hold. Steven wasn’t as rowdy as Juliet but still kicked, assuring Keith that he was still alive. Keith appreciated the reassurance. 

Lance sat down next to Keith in the nursery after a mission, grinning and sighing out, “Dude, you should have seen how funny these aliens were that we just met. If they went down to Earth, all of them would be very successful stand-up comedians!”

     “It would have been safe for me to go down there?” Keith asked, turning to Lance and biting his lip, jealous that he was able to go out to these planets and meet interesting aliens. 

Lance was about to say that Keith was in fact able to go down there, but seeing the expression on Keith’s face caused Lance to change his answer, “Nah, there could have been an attack at any second. In fact, one of the alien’s sense of humor was to punch people in the stomachs, so that wouldn’t have ended well for you.”

Keith gave a nervous laugh and looked down, rubbing his stomach as he muttered out, “Steven will be here in less than a month. Are you going to stop doing missions too?”

     “Me?” Lance asked, already shaking his head, “I can’t. Shiro would never let me, and I’m also not pregnant, so…” his voice trailed off. 

Keith sighed and looked down, “Then be careful, ok? If you die, there is no growing another one of you to replace you with a few months later…”

Lance grinned and kissed his cheek, “I’ll be fine. All three of us will be fine,” he leaned towards Keith’s tummy and lifted up his shirt to kiss the skin, “Won’t you, Steven?”

Keith laughed and pet Lance’s hair, “Keep your head down there any longer and he’ll start to kick more. When you enter the room, he gets so excited.”

     “Dance for daddy,” Lance pressed his ear to Keith’s stomach, waiting and listening for a kick. 

After not even half a minute, Steven started kicking, sending out five kicks at a time. Keith gripped onto Lance’s hand, mumbling out in pain but also laughing a little at how lively their little one became on command. Lance looked up at Keith with a grin and a sparkle in his eyes, “I love him. He’s not even born yet and I love him.”

     “He loves you too,” Keith smiled, rubbing his tummy. “Now how about we get dinner? I’m starving and Hunk said he’d fix me key lime pie. I have been craving it all day.”

The next few weeks went by just as smoothly, Lance going on missions and coming back safely. Him and Keith would spend most of their time in their room due to Keith not having the strength to take walks around the castle anymore. He even became breathless if they made out while laying down. 

It was a day like this when the castle shook, causing Keith to sit up from their bed in alarm. Lance was already getting up, grabbing his jacket and putting it on as he demanded in a serious tone, “Stay here while I go check it out. I’ll be back when I know what is going on.”

     “I need to stay with you,” Keith stood up as well, but Lance pushed him back down lightly from his shoulders.

     “You need to stay in the safest place for the baby,” Lance tilted his head, “And that is right here in this spot. I won’t leave the castle or put myself in danger without telling you what is going on first.”

Without anymore protest, Lance ran out of the room to the control room where Allura, Coran, and the rest of the paladins already were. She turned around to Lance with wide eyes, “Where is Keith? You need to get him and bring him here.”

     “Why?” Lance asked, looking back at the doors he came through. “What is going on?”

     “The Galra,” Allura answered. “They found us.”

Lance’s eyes widened, “We need to time warp away from here! We can’t stay and fight with Keith and the baby on board!”

     “We can't time warp with Keith being pregnant apparently,” Shiro answered him, already wearing his suit. “I already tried that suggestion.”

Lance ran his fingers through his hair, “Then Allura? Are you going to help us form Voltron? I’ll take red and you can take blue. We need to hurry though.”

     “That was what we were thinking. We need you to bring Keith in the control room though because he is safest here,” Coran spoke, trying to smile to assure him things would be alright. 

Lance worried what was going to happen in the next few hours, but he knew he had to remain calm in order to do his best. He had to keep Keith and the baby safe, and that was enough for him to stay strong. 

He turned to the door to leave, but Keith came barging into the room, holding his stomach and falling to the floor on his knees as he cried out, “Lance… Lance! It’s happening!”

     “The baby is coming?” Lance squeaked out, opening his arms up to Keith to help him up again. 

Keith shook his head as Lance picked him up, “No… No this is the same pain I felt when Juliet died.”

     “Oh God…” Lance heard Hunk say, rushing over to where Keith and Lance were. He helped Keith up and shouted over to Coran, “Coran, is there anything we can use to make sure their baby is ok?”

Keith tried to push Hunk away though Hunk didn’t budge. Through his tears, he breathlessly shouted out, “I know what it feels like…. It is too late!”

     “What are you feeling?” Allura asked, standing in front of Keith and lifting his head up to keep him awake and breathing. 

     “A pain…” Keith put his trembling hands over his stomach, “Where the baby is… It hurts a lo-!” He screamed out in pain again and doubled over, his pants now wet with a thin, transparent liquid.

Allura took a deep breath and smiled, sighing out, “You are going into labor, Keith. That is perfectly fine, though it is not exactly at a good time right now,” she turned to Coran, “His water just broke, can you focus on him while we suit up and go defeat the Galra ship?”

     “His water just broke?” Lance grinned, looking to Keith. Their baby was finally being born, and this time it was alive!

Keith’s eyes were wide with fear, “Why are they attacking? Tell them that now isn’t a good time!”

     “I’m afraid they won’t listen to words at the moment. Don’t worry though, we will keep them far away from the ship,” Allura stepped away from Keith, “Lance, let’s go. You will be back soon to see your newborn daughter.”

     “He can’t go with you!” Keith cried out, grasping on to Lance arm and pulling him down with him. “Just fight the Galra with four lions! We’ve done it before, please just let Lance stay here!”

     “Keith, I’ll be fine. You just worry about yourself, ok?” Lance managed to say before Keith cried out in pain again and fell back onto the ground in a heat of exhaustion. 

Lance took the opportunity to back away from him, ready to get suited up so he could go fight off the Galra before they had a chance to get to Keith. He brought Keith’s helmet into the control room where Keith was now getting undressed and ready to give birth, setting it down beside him and kissing Keith on the cheek, “Give me updates while I’m out there,” he kissed Keith’s stomach, “I’ll see you, little one, when I get back.”

     “Please don’t go,” Keith half begged, watching as Lance left the room anyways. 

     “I’ll be back before you know it!” he called out as the doors closed behind him. 

Keith shut his eyes and laid his head back, breathing heavily and waiting for the next contraction to send pain throughout his whole body. He held his stomach and bit his lip, waiting for Coran to come back with equipment to make sure the process of giving birth went by as smoothly as it could possibly be in this situation. 

Coran came running back in with a bag full of tools he felt necessary to use and positioned himself in between Keith’s legs. 

     “I’m going to need you to just breathe slowly for me, Keith,” Coran instructed, checking to see how close the baby was to coming out. 

Keith did as instructed and Coran informed him on how the baby was doing so far, “You don’t have to push yet. You need to dilate just a tad bit more and then you can start the easy process of just pushing! Lance might even be here in time for that since it seems you have quite a while before you are ready.”

Coran stood up and ran over to the controls, muttering out, “I’m going to try to get us away from the fight though just in case things do get a bit out of control. We don’t want to have the castle tilting and tumbling while you give birth now, do we?”

Keith shook his head, trying desperately to keep his breathing calm. When another contraction hit, he cried out again, yelling out for Coran to hurry up and help him, “I don’t give a fuck about the castle, just help-! Ah!”

     “Hold on, Keith!” Coran called out as calmly as he could, setting a few controls on the castle to make it start moving away from the fight slowly.

He then ran back over to keith and pulled a hospital gown out of his bag, “I’m going to put this on you while we can, so you don’t have to worry about putting clothes back on when the baby is born. I don’t want to concern you, but you will be in too much pain to want to move afterwards, so this will just be one less thing to worry about.”

Keith shut his eyes and groaned on, “You are forgetting, I've been through this before. Just put it on me and get the baby out of me! It hurts!”

Coran quickly slipped Keith’s arms though the sleeves of the gown and tied it around his back, sitting back to check in between Keith’s legs to see if Keith was ready to push or not yet. 

     “Does it still hurt a lot, Keith?” he asked, looking up at the boy drenched in sweat, face red from crying and screaming so much in the past few minutes. The question was rhetorical. 

Keith bit his lip, “Like a bitch.”

     “Then I’ll go get you something for the pain. Just hold on a tic, I’ll be back before your next contraction hopefully,” he ran out of the room, leaving Keith alone yet again. 

Another contraction came as soon as he left the room. Keith screamed out and begged his unborn baby to hurry up and start coming out already, but he knew it was going to be a long night before he finally got to see Steven. 

When the door opened again, Keith thought that Coran was coming back in, but his eyes widened when he saw a Galra standing before him. He held his stomach and sat up as much as he could, screaming out for Coran, “Coran t-there are Galra! Help!”

The Galra grinned and spoke into his ear piece, “I found the pregnant red paladin. It looks like he has gone into labor though. What do I do?” 

Keith started to slowly get up, trying to move back away from the Galra though he knew that wouldn’t help. The Galra looked up from speaking into his earpiece and grinned, “Kill it as soon as it comes out? Understood.”

     “No…” Keith demanded, shutting his legs. He then screamed at the top of his lungs, “No! You fucking bastard, get away from me! Don’t touch him!”

The Galra grabbed his legs, pulling him closer, “Would you prefer me to stab it or shoot it?”

Keith shook his head, hot tears falling from his eyes, “Don’t do anything! Just let me go, please. I’ll do anything! I’ll give you my lion!”

     “Likely story,” the Galra chuckled. “I have a mission I need to complete so push.”

As soon as he said that, the doors to the control room opened and Coran came running in with a pan, wasting no time to smash the Galra in the head as he shouted out to Keith, “Run to a different room and stay quiet! I’ll handle this tricky fellow and come find you when the coast is clear.”

Keith nodded his head and took the Galra’s moment of weakness to his advantage, getting up slowly and hobbling over to the door with his hand over his stomach. He looked back at Coran and sniffled, “Thank you…”

     “No problem, now hurry!” Coran said, slamming the frying pan down on the Galra’s head again. 

Keith exited the room and started waddling as fast as he could to the back of the ship where the hanger was. It would take a while for the Galra to find him if he got past Coran, and Keith would also get help from the other paladins as soon as they came back if he stayed there. He went to the red lion’s hanger, feeling most comfortable being in that surrounding. 

He turned the lights on and started walking over to a few escape pods, making a plan to hide behind them in the meantime. He looked down at his stomach to see that blood was dripping from his groin. He looked back behind him and saw that the trail of blood droplets only started when he entered the room, letting him relax a bit knowing that he didn’t create a trail for the Galra to follow him here. 

He started to walk over to the pods, but another contraction caused him to fall to the ground. Without thinking, he automatically started to push because whether he wanted it or not, Steven was coming out now. He screamed out in pain, immediately covering his mouth afterwards when he realized he was trying to stay hidden. He got onto his knees and felt for his opening, feeling his fingers brush against what was probably Steven’s head. 

     “Thank God, you are alive,” he breathed out, laughing under his breath. 

He got onto his hands and knees and started to push as hard as he could, holding his hand under his opening to catch Steven when he finally came out fully. When Steven’s head and shoulders were out, Keith managed to pull him the rest of the way out, quickly bringing Steven up to his chest as he collapsed to the ground in pain. His legs were trembling with exhaustion in pain, and he felt like he had been split open from his opening up to his stomach. He still managed to look down at his baby though, distracting himself from the state he was in. 

     “You are so beautiful…” Keith muttered, staring at his baby’s eyes as they fluttered open. 

He crawled over to the pods to hide there, every breath feeling like his last. He opened the door to one of the escape pods and pulled out a manual book, using the edge of the cover to cut the umbilical cord and officially separate himself from Steven. He breathed out in relief that everything was going so smoothly, holding on closely to Steven and praying that Coran would get there soon to make sure his baby stayed healthy. 

Steven was already falling asleep again even though it was just moments after he was brought into the world. Keith was happy he was quiet though, not wanting his crying to tell the Galra where he was hiding. He just needed to last long enough until Lance came back. Then he could relax and actually enjoy his own little ball of life. 

Keith hummed a lullaby he heard Lance singing once to his stomach when he thought the other was asleep. He couldn’t sing it as good as Lance, and he couldn’t even remember what the words were, but he knew the tune and that was comforting enough. 

He wiped some of his blood off of Steven, only smearing it to different areas, but it was enough for him to see Steven’s sleeping face clearly. He grunted in pain as his placenta passed, a headache forming as the pains of birth kept a control over his whole body. 

     “Daddy will be here soon and save us both,” he muttered out, pressing his lips to Steven’s nose.

When he looked up again from Steven, the door to the hanger opened slowly and the Galra stepped in, looking at the trail of blood on the ground and let out a low laugh, “Have you given birth yet?”

Keith hid Steven behind his back and against the wall before the Galra found him behind the pod. Keith put his hands over his stomach that had become a bit smaller but not too noticeably. He groaned out in pain and shook his head, “Just leave me alone.. I can give birth to him myself and I want to do it in private.”

     “Mission order changed though,” the Galra took out a sword and tapped the tip of it to Keith’s stomach, “I am to kill both you and the little unborn brat as well. Half human-Galra hybrids shouldn’t even get a chance to live either.”

The Galra raised the sword a bit, getting ready to plunge it into Keith. Keith shouted out in fear and lifted his stomach up as a shield to protect his baby behind him. He braced for the impact, but nothing could prepare him for the excruciating pain he felt of the blade stabbing through his stomach and out his back, the sound of metal scraping the floor behind heard soon after. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he felt behind him for Steven, checking to see if he was fine. He felt a small hand grab his finger and he took a deep breath, finally relaxing. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath, “You bastard…” he opened his eyes and started to put on a performance, “You killed him, so just leave me in peace! You already destroyed everything I’ve ever fought for, so just let me bleed out and die without you in my presence!”

The Galra seemed content with himself, taking out his sword and stepping back to look at the bloodied mess of a man the red paladin had become. It was a pitiful sight. It was enough to make Zarkon proud. The Galra grinned and put his sword back into his belt, “Then I’ll leave you to rot inside this castle for the other paladins to come back to… if they come back.”

Keith felt behind him for Steven, keeping his head down to hide the smile on his face that at least Steven was going to be safe from the wrath of the Galra. The chances of him living through this was a matter of if he got to the healing pods in time or not.

Everything seemed like it was going to be ok when the Galra almost reached the doorknob, but Steven suddenly started to cry. Keith couldn’t be mad at the horrible timing. Steven was a baby, babies cried, and now was a time to cry for anyone no matter what age they were. Keith’s eyes widened and he looked up at the Galra that was staring back at him. 

     “Can’t I cry?” Keith sniffled, “Stop staring at me like that!”

The Galra turned slowly to him and tried to peer behind Keith’s back, “That… sounded like a baby.”

Keith opened his mouth to deny the spot on claim, but as soon as he opened it, Steven let out a scream, crying louder than before and now non-stop. Keith’s eyes widened as the galra started walking back over to him, pulling his sword out again. 

He dropped the act and held his arms out, “Don’t touch me! I can get you all five of the lions so Zarkon can form voltron! At least talk it over with him!”

     “You already gave birth to that mut baby,” the galraan growled, swinging his fist at Keith and punching him in the face, making him fall to the side, revealing the baby. 

Keith scurried back over to protect Steven, wrapping his arms around his baby and pulling him close, covering him in every direction so the galra soldier couldn’t stab his baby without stabbing him first. Hopefully he took mercy though. He knew galra were capable of that from personal experience. 

This galra in particular though didn’t even flinch at the sight of a Keith desperately clinging onto his baby to protect him from the tragedy that was soon to come. Keith was a target as well anyways. Stabbing the sword through Keith’s chest and to the baby’s head was just killing two birds with one stone. 

Keith felt the sword pierce through his rib cage, coming out the other side and not stopping until it reached Steven. He tried to move Steven so Steven wouldn’t be hurt, but it was too late. He looked down, horrified at the sight in his arms.

     “You…” he breathed out, tears swelling up in his eyes before he could control himself. 

He tried to move, but he was stuck on the sword. The sword finally roughly slipped out of both him and Steven, leaving him limp on the ground with blood spilling out at an alarm rate. He had no time to care about himself though. He looked up at the galra and shouted out, “I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

He tried to sit up, but his whole body forced him back down again. The galraan soldier grinned and stepped back, “You should be dead before your precious blue paladin gets here. It’s not like he would want to save you anyways. A mate who had a miscarriage and got his second baby killed? What use are you without a baby? The blue paladin wants a family, and you can’t even grant him that one wish.”

Keith slumped over, staring at Steven who was now dead, blood spilling from his head. He picked him up and held him close, sitting up and leaning against the wall as he growled out, “I’m going to survive... and I’m going to kill you.”

     “And then what? Do you think you will get pregnant again and live a happy life after you kill me? Zarkon will know of your pregnancy and he will make sure it is dead before you can hold it in your hands. You can try and try and try, but he will kill every last one of them until it is impossible for you to even try to conceive a child.”

     “Why would he do that?” Keith cried out, “My personal life has nothing to do with this stupid fucking Voltron!”

The galra grinned, “But it does. You enter this war, you sign your life and your happiness away. If you survive you can tell the blue paladin this too, say goodbye to ever having a family or any kind of happiness because Zarkon is making it his personal side mission to make you all regret being paladins before he is through with this war.”

Keith looked down at his baby, sobbing out when he saw the lifeless blue eyes that were once full of joy to be alive even though it was only for half a minute. At least he got to hold this baby once this time. He shut his eyes and tried to pretend that his baby was still alive, not knowing how he was going to tell Lance what happened when he finally did come back. 

Suddenly though, he heard a gunshot ring through the air, causing his head to snap up in fear of what was going on now. He looked to his side to see that red was back in her hanger and Lance was standing on top of her mouth, chest heaving up and down as he looked up from his sniper gun. As soon as he looked to Keith, the Galra fell to the ground from the head shot, finally dead but already successful with his mission.

     “I was too late wasn’t I?” he breathed out, jumping down from the lion and dropping his bayard gun. 

He ran over to Keith and fell to the ground infront of him on his knees, “Please tell me the baby is ok. He is fine, he wasn’t hurt right?”

Keith didn’t answer. He just waited for Lance’s eyes to land on Steven’s bloodied face. When that happened, he heard Lance let out a cry, causing his whole body to clench up in fear of crying too. He didn’t deserve to cry now. He failed Lance. He failed protecting the only thing he needed to protect before Lance even got a chance to meet him or see him alive. He failed him twice now in the past eight months. 

Lance carefully took Steven from Keith’s hands and stared at him, his tear drops falling on the dead baby’s face, “No… no, no, no… This! Why? Why did this happen?”

He looked up at Keith now screaming out questions neither of them knew the answer to, “Why did this have to happen to us? To Steven? He did nothing wrong! He was just a baby!”

Keith only started to cry more, closing his eyes and slumping down into the nothing he felt like in Lance’s presence, “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

He was finally starting to fall in an out of consciousness for half seconds at a time, losing and gaining focus as he cried and swayed in front of Lance. The other paladins came running into the hanger when they heard Lance’s shouts. Allura’s eyes widened and she turned to the direction of the control room, “Coran!” 

She ran off while Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro stayed behind and tried to figure out what was going on with Lance, Keith, and their… oh… All of their eyes landed on the blood covered baby in Lance’s hands, and they had a close enough idea as to what happened. 

Hunk walked over to Lance and ushered him to stand up, trying to take Steven away from him though Lance snapped at him, “Don’t you dare touch him! I’m going to go put him in the pod. He is going to live!”

Keith sniffled and got up, using the side of the wall, muttering out over and over again, “I’m sorry, Lance…. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

Shiro was the only one to notice the blood dripping from Keith’s drenched hospital gown, leading him to look down at the dangerously large pool of blood around Keith as well. Shiro’s eyes widened and he ran over to Keith, “We need Keith in a pod too! He-!”

Keith fell to the ground before he could finish, falling unconscious as soon as his head hit the marble floor of the hanger. Hunk turned his attention to Keith when he heard him hit the floor and helped Shiro pick him up and take him to the pods to heal him. 

Coran was unconscious from being stabbed but was still alive and Keith was alive enough to be able to be healed in the pods. It would take a week for the both of them to heal, but that would be enough for the paladins to be prepared for when Keith woke up. 

To Lance’s dismay though, Steven was dead as soon as he was stabbed, unable to be healed or revived by the pod. He was lost before Lance ever got the chance to even hold him. 

When Keith and Coran got out of their pods, they were welcomed by the fake smiles and warm faces of Allura, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk. Neither seemed to be happy about getting out considering what had happened right before they got into the pods. 

Coran looked to Keith and then his stomach, turning to Allura then with wide eyes as he asked, “Is the baby?....”

Keith flinched at the word and Coran knew what that meant. He lowered his head in shame and tried to speak to Keith with caution, “I am so sorry… The castle didn’t detect a galra sneaking in, but I should have locked the door for safety, and-!”

     “Where is Lance?” Keith interrupted him, looking up at the other paladins. “Why isn’t he here?”

Hunk and Pidge looked at each other warily, turning back to Keith slowly. Hunk awkwardly tried to explain as much as the truth as possible without making Keith feel like shit just moments after he got out of the pod, “He is just trying to deal with everything… his own way. He needs to be alone right now.”

     “He hates me.. I knew it,” Keith mumbled, tears falling from his eyes. 

He clenched his fists and he walked past the paladins to leave the room, “Where is he? I’ll make sure I stay far away from where he is, so I don’t disrupt his ‘dealing with everything’.”

Feeling conflicted with what he should say, but also know it was best to just answer Keith for now, Hunk told him where Lance was, “He is in your room… You can go to uh… Pidge’s or my room though if you want to lay down somewhere.”

     “Yeah, we don’t mind,” Pidge added, but was cut off by the door to the room slamming open and shut as Keith left. 

Keith went straight for the nursery, not knowing where else he would go besides Lance. Lance wasn’t an option, so it was to the only other comforting thing he had now. He walked into the nursery, feeling uncomfortable with the name Steven everywhere around him. The name Steven didn’t have an owner anymore. 

Keith sat down in the chair he normally sat down in when he was grieving Juliet and when he was pregnant with both her and then eventually Steven. Both of them were gone now because of him. He couldn’t blame Lance for hating him for that reason. He hated himself too. 

As he sat down in the silence and isolation of the room, he let himself cry not caring if the walls were soundproof or not. He just needed to let all of his frustration and grief out someway though. This was the only way he knew out. 

After an hour of solid crying though, Keith still didn’t feel any better. Through the frustration of not feeling any better, Keith knocked over a bunch of stuffed animals that were sitting on the table by the crib. Without thinking he knocked over the lamp as well, the fragile material it was made of smashing into pieces on the ground. 

Keith let out a cry and fell to the ground, picking up the pieces of the lamp that was a gift from an alien species for his first pregnancy with Juliet. It was tacky, but he still loved it. Keith decided not to stop there though. Why keep something with a presence that was just going to make him cry? 

He knocked over the baby crib, breaking it in half with his leg that he kicked down on it. Next to go was a picture frame off the wall and then a book case in the corner. Everything was crashing down to the ground, given no mercy by him until it was all destroyed. No ‘Steven’ was left remaining. No trace of what was once something really happy to him was unbroken. The worst part about all of it was that he still didn’t feel even a little bit better. 

     “What did you do?...” Keith heard someone mutter out behind him from the door. 

Keith turned around quickly, chest heaving from the prior activity. His eyes widened when he saw Lance in his sight. 

Lance looked rough, his hair tousled more than Keith’s was, dark circles under his red eyes that made it look like he hadn’t slept in a week. He probably didn’t. 

Keith put on a fake smile, tears already in his eyes as he asked, “So did you guys bury Steven yet? Which planet is our dead baby on this time, huh?”

     “Shut up…” Lance placed his hand on his head, stepping forward, “Why would you destroy our baby’s room?”

     “Dead baby,” Keith corrected, knocking over another picture frame of him and Lance that he realized he hadn’t knocked down yet. 

Lance clenched his fists tight and snapped at Keith, “Are you enjoying this? You seem like losing Steven is a good thing! Did you want this to happen?”

     “Of course not!” Keith screamed back, startling Lance with his volume. “Who the fuck would want their baby to die? A galra? Oh shit, I am one! I must look for danger with my own child as my shield! That’s what you think, isn’t it? Do you blame me for all of this?”

Lance went quiet, looking down at the ground. 

That was enough of an answer for Keith to know he was right about Lance blaming him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lance finally muttered out, “Who loses two babies in a row to their own kind? It’s just… And then you destroy the only thing we have left of the both of them? Do you not want to try for another baby either?”

     “And lose another kid?” Keith sniffled, “I’d rather get it over with and die myself.”

Lance shut his eyes and held his breath, “So you are throwing all of this away.”

     “Being a baby carrier is all I was ever good for,” Keith shrugged. “Maybe I should kill myself too while I’m at-!”

He was interrupted when Lance’s fist impacted with his face, causing him to stumble back both from the surprise and force that came from the punch. Keith put his hand to his cheek and sniffled, “What was that for?”

Lance’s eyes were wide with anger, his stance a fighting one. He shouted out as the doors opened and the paladins were on the other side, “You killed both of our kids! None of this would have happened if you just listened to everyone else and stayed in the ship when pregnant with Juliet or if you didn’t try to hide in the most fucking obvious place for a red paladin to hide in a Galra attack! Then you destroy the only thing left for us to remember Steven by and tell me that all you are good for is carrying babies? You are fucking terrible at carrying children cause you kill them! If that is the only thing you are ‘good’ at then maybe you really should just kill yourself!”

It was the grief talking. He didn’t mean a word he was saying. He loved Keith. But neither he nor Keith would believe those statements in the moment. Shiro stepped in before Lance could try to punch Keith again, holding his arms up and behind his head as he dragged him back saying in a threatening tone, “It would be in your best interest to not say another word to Keith right now.”

Keith fell to the ground and started crying, all of his worries being confirmed true. Lance hated him. There was nothing left to bring them together with their babies gone and the fear looming over him that was too much to try for another one. He lost both of his babies. He lost Lance. He lost his purpose… What more could he to live for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for the next chapter!  
> I hope you liked it - Thoughts on Season Four?


	3. Trying to Move On

CHAPTER THREE

* * *

 

It had been a little over a year since Steven died. Keith and Lance still hadn’t talked to each other more than a few sentences that were muttered to each other on the anniversary of Juliet’s death and then on the anniversary of Steven’s death. They lit lanterns on the planet they buried both of their children on, the queen making both days holidays to let people mourn on her planet. 

Her baby had made it through the galra bombing that killed Juliet, being born and already six months old when Keith and Lance last went to visit Steven’s grave. The queen thought that maybe she would be able to cheer Keith up by letting him play with her child, but he only ended up having a melt down before taking red back up to the ship and going to bed four hours before the other paladins made their way back to the castle. 

Keith and Lance were also not sharing a room together anymore, unable to be in a room with each other alone without glaring at each other until one of them left or even started crying. Lance slept alone in what used to be both his and Keith’s room while Keith slept in Shiro’s room, unable to sleep without someone else there with him. He had tried sleeping with Hunk and Pidge first, but the glow of Pidge’s laptop until three at night made it hard for him to sleep and Hunk’s snoring woke him up and made it impossible to fall back asleep afterwards. Shiro was the best option for him with the absence of Lance, though Shiro was not up for spooning when Keith suggested it to help him sleep. 

Despite Lance and Keith’s silent hatred for each other, they could still form Voltron just fine though Keith and Lance barely had any kind of real moral or effort when fighting. They both developed a psych where they felt like no matter how hard they tried or fought, the war was going to keep going on. It was never ending, and they were both tired of it.

Both had become depressed over the year, Lance falling in an out of it for weeks at a time where he was like his old self for a few weeks and then never leaving his room unless he had to. He was started to have less bits of time where he was depressed though, the farther away he got time-wise from the incident. Keith on the other hand never got out of it. He became depressed and hadn’t become happy sense. 

The others tried to go about like everything was the same, hoping that the two hurting paladins would follow in suit and finally become like their old selves again. No matter how hard the paladins tried to make Keith and Lance get better though, neither of them could look at each other without being reminded of what was taken from the both of them. 

One day when training, Hunk and Keith were partnering up to fight against each other. Hunk was going easy on Keith, treating him like he was fragile because in all honesty, he was. Keith got angry though, knowing that he was going easy on him, so he shouted out with an irritated huff, “You are allowed to attack me and not just play defense!”

     “What are you talking about? I normally play defense,” Hunk defended himself, putting his hands up. 

Keith rolled his eyes and stopped fighting, turning around to Shiro who was watching the four partnered up paladins and shouting out to him, “Shiro fight me so I can actually train!”

     “Keith, this exercise isn’t about letting anger out, it’s about-!” Shiro tried to say, but was interrupted by Keith yelling out of anger, “Get over here and fight me, dammit!”

Shiro sighed and stepped up to the fighting floor, letting Hunk take a breather on the side for a minute so he could let Keith let out pent up stress. He eyed Keith carefully, “Are you ready?”

     “Make this hard for me,” he reminded Shiro. 

He then ran at Shiro, yelling out and holding his bayard out that transformed into a sword before he lunged at him. Shiro blocked the attack with his hand and stepped back swiftly moving around to tap Keith in the back lightly to let him know he could have gotten him there. He wasn’t going to actually use his hand on Keith’ due to something that always happened every time Keith lost. He made sure to tell the others to go easy on him just so they wouldn’t have to deal with one of his episodes. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to help Keith through one today. 

They kept fighting for a few more minutes before Keith lost his balance when trying to jump to the other side of Shiro to try to attack him from behind. Shiro quickly tried to grab him, but ended up grabbing his sword handle instead, taking it from his hand right before he fell to the ground. 

Keith’s eyes widened when he fell to the ground and looked up to see a galra light holding a sword towards his stomach, transporting him back to that time he had the sword against his swollen belly with his baby still behind him. He held his belly tightly and curled up in a ball, shutting his eyes and begging him, “Please don’t kill him… I’ll give you my life in exchange for his just leave him here!”

     “What?” Shiro questioned, quickly dropping the sword to the side and looking to Lance. 

Lance was looking on, but his expression seemed bored, “Don’t look at me. We don’t talk anymore.”

Shiro rolled his eyes at Lance’s response and bent down to Keith’s level, brushing his sweaty black hair out of his face as he muttered out, “Hey… You are safe. We were just sparring, remember? Hunk and Pidge are here. Do you want cookies? Hunk baked a batch an hour ago, so we could go to the kitchen to get some.”

     “Where… Where is Steven?” Keith felt his stomach, sitting up quickly and looking behind him. He looked back to Shiro and shouted out, “Where is he? He was here just a second ago!”

Keith looked past Shiro to see Lance still sparring with Pidge. Keith let out a breath of relief and called out to him, “Lance! Where is Steven?”

Lance was at first surprised when Keith called out to him, but when he heard the question he asked, his face fell and he turned away from him, muttering out under his breath, “Snap out of it already…”

      “What?” Keith asked, turning to Shiro, “The sword… I didn’t? Is Steven?”

Shiro hugged Keith tightly, rubbing his back lightly as he answered him, “Steven sadly didn’t make it, Keith. Just calm down and realize when and where you are. It has been a little over a year since you lost Steven.”

      “I lost him…” tears formed in Keith’s eyes and he suddenly came back, tightening his hold around Shiro as he muttered out again, “I hate this... I fucking hate this!”

Pidge had stopped sparring with Lance against his wishes, unable to focus with Keith on the brink of having an episode. He already technically did, but they always grew worse after he was transported back to the time Steven died and then back to the present. Pidge gripped her bayard and turned to Lance with a look that begged him to help Keith. He rolled his eyes though and ignored her, staring down at his shoes as he waited for Shiro to usher Keith out of the room to try to calm him down. 

Shiro didn't need to do that though, Keith taking in slow breaths to calm himself down as he slowly said, "I'm going to go lay down in the room..."

     “That sounds like a good idea,” Shiro smiled, standing up and helping Keith get up as well after him. “I’ll get you when it is time for dinner.”

Keith nodded his head and started to walk out, avoiding eye contact with everyone else even as they stared at him silently until they left. When the door closed back and Keith’s presence was elsewhere, Lance suddenly turned his sniper gun back into his original bayard form as he said, “I need to talk to him,” before starting to run towards the door. 

     “Is now really a good time?” Shiro asked, wondering what could possibly be said right after Keith had a mini episode and wanted to be alone right now.

Lance walked past Shiro though and answered, “Now is the perfect time actually.”

He chased after Keith until he caught up with him, grabbing him on the shoulder and turning him around as he said, “Hey, I need to talk to you for a quick second.”

     “About what?” Keith warily asked, unsure of what to think about Lance talking to him. 

Lance looked off awkwardly to the side before finally saying to him, “Are you going through your little episodes for attention? If so, then can you just stop? You have no idea how much it sucks for me when you drag me into your blast to the past and try to get me to relive what happened as well. I’m trying to forget it. Maybe you should forget him as well or just at least stop saying his name around me.”

     “I’ll stop,” Keith replied, putting on a fake smile for Lance. 

Lance’s eyes widened in surprise, “Really? You are agreeing with me that easily?”

     “Yeah, I’ll ask Allura if there is something on the castle that can take away memories. I’ll be happier that way,” Keith said, nodding his head and stepping back. 

Lance looked down at the ground and shrugged, “Well ok, that was easy. Thanks, then.”

Keith tilted his head, “Can you kiss me?”

     “What?” Lance's eyes wide with confusion. He shook his head, “Why would I do that?”

     “Because you used to love me,” Keith answered, shrugging his shoulders. “Isn’t that enough?”

Lance shut his eyes and sighed, “Not really, but.. I’ll do it.”

Keith closed his eyes as Lance leaned forward and brushed his lips against Keith’s lips. The kiss could barely be called a kiss and it lasted only a few seconds before Lance pulled away and started walking back to the training room. He called out to Keith one last time before disappearing into the training room again, “Get some rest so you're not grumpy at dinner.”

Keith nodded his head and started to walk away, pressing his fingers up against his lips. There was no love there. They were both still mated to each other, now unable to be with anyone else, but they were never going to be with each other again. Lance hated him. That was enough for him know what he should do next.

He closed his eyes on his way to Shiro’s room, feeling the red lion getting angry with him. The red lion knew what he was about to do. She didn’t understand that everyone would be happier this way, so he didn’t bother to listen to her.

When he got to Shiro’s room, he walked over to their bed and pulled out his anti-depressant pills. They never really worked, but Keith was sure they would still produce harmful effects if he took all of them at once. He sat down on the bed and opened up the pill bottle, looking inside at the half filled bottle. It probably wasn’t enough to kill him.  He bent over and looked under the bed at a bottle of alcohol Shiro hid there. Shiro saved it for special occasions when he woke up in a cold sweat thinking he was still in the Galra prison. Keith was going to have to borrow some of it though in order to make these pills have more of an harmful effect. 

He tipped the bottle up to his mouth and poured all of the pills in, swallowing them in groups of three so he wouldn’t have trouble with them getting stuck in his throat. He then washed them down to his stomach with a big swig of alcohol that burned on the way down. Keith slid down to the floor and laid his back against the bed, taking another sip of alcohol. 

Tears were rolling down his face, but he was happy he was doing this. If he died, he would get to be with Steven again. He would be reunited with his baby, and he would never be sad again. That was all he could ever ask for. 

Red was going crazy in his mind, telepathically roaring at him to stop what he was doing. If she wasn’t freaking out yet, then that meant he wasn’t in danger still. He needed more. He opened up the bedside drawer to find another pill bottle full of sleeping pills probably for Shiro. Shiro could always get more later if he was able to use them all. 

Keith took half of the pills in the bottle, not wanting to leave Shiro sleepless the night following his suicide. He gave him three nights worth of pills which was plenty of time for Allura and Coran to get him more. 

Keith washed those pills down with more alcohol, wincing when the pills started to have an early effect on his stomach. He dropped the open pill bottle without thinking, a headache coming on that made him feel nauseous. He grabbed his stomach and leaned forward, crying out in pain. It felt like he was losing a baby. His eyes widened and he started to cry, curling up into a ball, his whole body trembling. 

He heard the red lion roar from across the castle, followed by a rumble that caused the whole ship to shake as if it were on the ground during an earthquake. Keith shook his head, tears falling from his face that burned his skin, “Don’t save me…”

The red lion didn’t listen to him, too busy causing a disruption to get the others’ attentions. Keith held his stomach, trying to work through the burning pain that stung him every few seconds. Finally, the red lion spoke to him, sending a sensation of guilt through him though Keith wasn’t regretting what he was doing at all. 

He bit his trembling lip, crying out, “I want to die! There is nothing left for me here to live for!” 

The red lion tried to keep him awake, roaring non-stop both inside his mind and throughout the castle, but Keith was soon swept unconscious by the pills.  

When he woke up, he was in the castle clinic, laying under the thin covers of the clinic bed. He tensed up when he felt a hand wrap tightly around his own. His eyes fluttered open, but before he could see who was beside him, that person leaned on him and wrapped his arms around him tightly, crying out, “I hate you so much… Why would you do something like that?”

     “Who is this?” Keith asked, looking up at the bright ceiling through squinted eyes that burned when he opened them. 

He recognized the voice, but he couldn’t believe Lance would actually care about him. The person answered back, confirming his thoughts, “I’m Lance… Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

     “Yes,” Keith croaked out, not wanting to sugar-coat what he did. “Why did you guys save me… I wanted to die. I would be happier dead. There is nothing left for me here….”

Lance’s body started to shake with either fury or from crying. Keith couldn't  tell which one it was, even when Lance shouted out, “What about me?! Did you think you could just leave me here alone to deal with it all? I had to find you half dead on the ground surrounded by pills! Did you know how much that hurt me?”

     “You don’t love me anymore,” Keith argued, tears falling down his face. “All I do is bring up what you want to forget, so wouldn’t it be easier for you if I was dead? Everytime I walk into the room, you look at me like I am the one that killed both of our babies! And I know you think that, which is why it is so hard… It is so hard to live knowing that you think that about me! I didn’t get to hold him… I didn’t get to bury him… I didn’t,” he bit his lip, “I didn’t get to move on because the only person I had left blamed me for everything.”

Lance tried to bite back his tears, but they were already rolling down his face. He sat down beside Keith’s bed again, still holding his hand in fear he would disappear if he stopped touching him. He shook his head and looked down, “I never meant a word I said… I just said it because I was angry and confused why we lost two kids in one year. I know it wasn’t your fault. I know you were probably hurting more than me, but I couldn’t stop myself from just… taking out all my anger on you.”

     “Then why did you stop talking to me completely?” Keith sniffled, closing his eyes and feeling for Lance’s hand. He didn’t hold it back, but he found comfort being held by him again. 

Lance shrugged and looked down, “I tried to bring myself to apologize, but it felt like we were already too far apart to be fixed. I hurt you too much to ever be with you again. I thought maybe we could both heal faster without each other until you… you tried to kill yourself.”

Keith nodded his head and slowly got up, holding his stomach and letting his legs dangle off the side of the bed. He pressed his hands on the bed to keep himself stable and asked, “Do you still love me?”

     “I never stopped,” Lance muttered out, trying to smile but tears kept falling down his cheeks. 

Keith looked down at his knees and bit his lips, “Me neither…” He choked on his tears and sobbed out again, leaning on Lance and wrapping his arms around his shoulders, “I want to be with you again… I don’t want to deal with everything on my own anymore. We were supposed to be a team!”

     “I’m sorry…” Lance sniffled, holding onto Keith tightly. “I’ll never… I never want to do this again. This was the shittiest year of my life without you.”

The other paladins had entered the room long ago, standing in the back of the room near the door, not wanting to disrupt what seemed like a miracle that was happening: Lance and Keith getting back together. A year long misunderstanding caused by grief was solved in just a matter of minutes after Keith woke up. 

That night, Keith returned back to Lance’s room, letting Shiro finally get off of his duty of being a human body pillow replacement to his relief. Keith and Lance held onto each other tightly for a few minutes, crying and talking about how much they loved each other to make up for the year apart. Keith was also able to describe what Steven was like in his few moments alive for the first time out loud, making Lance miss him even more now that he knew he was such a happy baby even for just a few minutes. 

Soon the hugs and light kisses they placed on each other became deep kisses and reaches under the shirt to feel more of each other. Both of them couldn’t take it anymore and a few minutes later were moving with each other on top of the rocking bed, moaning and repeating loving words to each other that they both missed saying and hearing from the other. 

Keith made sure Lance put a condom on, not wanting to get pregnant ever again. Lance was compliant, knowing that a pregnancy this early would be one filled with too much worry, and they wouldn’t be able to enjoy it without being afraid a Galra attack would happen at any time and they would lose another kid. Both of them wouldn’t be able to deal with another loss emotionally. 

When they were finished, they both lay in bed in a heap of sweat and sheets, holding onto each other tightly as if they were in a dream that was going to end soon. Lance ran his fingers through Keith’s hair, “Without a baby, the two of us will have each other, and that is all we need in a family. You are the reason why I am fighting this war.”

     “I fighting this war for you too,” Keith smiled, taking in his scent and letting out a sigh, “And when this war is over, I want us to try again… for a baby. I want to at least give that to you one day, but we will just have to wait until there is no more danger.”

Lance kissed Keith, “You are all I need.”

     “Don’t you want another baby though?” Keith asked, tilting his head up to look Lance in the eyes. 

Lance looked to the side and shrugged, “I just… I don’t want to risk going through the pain of losing another baby. Do you really want to risk it?”

Keith looked down, “I guess not…”

Lance saw that Keith was starting to feel angry with himself for what had happened in the past with their last two tries, so he quickly lifted Keith’s chin up and kissed him, “I repeat, all we need is each other. Let’s not worry about something that will only cause us pain if we attempt it.”

     “Ok,” Keith held onto Lance tighter and repeated him, smiling to himself, “All we need is each other.”

They fell asleep in each other’s arms, that being the first night they both slept soundly in a year. 

Two weeks went by and everything was back to how it was before they got pregnant the first time. Keith and Lance trained together, went on missions together, and spent every moment they could possibly get together. Not even Allura had the guts to try to separate them when doing group activities. The whole group treated the duo with special care, just happy that Keith and Lance were finally happy again with each other after a year of pain. The two still had their moments where they needed to find someplace quiet and hold each other as they cried over their two children they lost, but it was easier now that they were together to help each other through these times. 

     “Since we don’t have a mission today, why don’t we go on a space date like we used to do?” Lance asked from the bed as Keith brushed his hair and pulled it back into a high bun in the bathroom. 

     “With our lions?” Keith asked, trying to twist a few whispies back behind his ear. 

Lance sat up in bed and nodded his head, “Yeah, we could take them out to the closest galaxy and look down at it while hanging out on the roof of our lions. It’s always fun to just float out there.”

Keith smiled and stepped out of the bathroom in just his boxer briefs, “That sounds relaxing. I’m down for that.”

     “Really?” Lance grinned, standing up now. “I’ll tell Shiro we’ll be out just so he knows where we are, and then we can go!”

     “Ok,” Keith answered, eyes widening though as soon as he said that. Without another word, he ran back to the bathroom to throw up in the toilet, not stopping until stomach acid was all that was coming out. 

He wiped his mouth and stood up, “Well that was a sucky surprise.”

     “Are you sick?” Lance asked, fear running through him that it was because of something else though. 

Keith nodded his head and splashed some water on his face, “Yeah, I’ve been feeling nauseous all day. I have a stuffy nose too, so it is most likely that.”

Lance let out a sigh of relief that Keith noticed. Keith’s heart stung for a moment, but he put on a fake smile and walked over to Lance to hug him, “Don’t worry, we use condoms and we only had sex twice so far, so that would be really unlucky if we got pregnant just from those two times while wearing protection.”

Lance laughed a little and looked down, “That’s true. Should we take a raincheck on today then and take you to the clinic to get medicine from Allura?”

     “I’ll just fix myself some food and try to get over it on my own. There is nothing much else you can do with a stomach bug,” Keith explained, kissing Lance on the cheek and walking past him, “Hopefully it’s not contagious.”

     “Me too, cause you just kissed me!” Lance laughed, following Keith to the kitchen where the rest of the paladins were. 

They both walked into the kitchen where the rest of the group were already eating, Keith walking in with his hand pressed on his back to soothe some back pains as he asked Hunk, “Did you fix soup by any chance? I just threw up and I think that will help the nausea.”

     “Nausea?” Hunk’s eyes widened, followed by everyone else at the table making the same expression as they stared up at Lance and Keith. 

Keith noticed their expressions and rolled his eyes, “I’m not pregnant. We use protection. We are never going to have another kid.”

     “Never,” Lance added for emphases. “Keith has flu symptoms, not pregnancy symptoms.”

     “Aren’t those the same things?” Pidge asked, getting up. “Should we run a test just in case?”

Keith turned around quickly and glared at Pidge, “No.”

Pidge raised her arms up in defeat, “Ok, just a suggestion.”

Shiro sighed and cast Pidge a look to thank her for trying. He pulled back a chair for Keith to sit in and said, “Hunk didn’t fix soup, but I’m sure he can fix you some if that is what you want?”

     “I’ll fix it if I can get out of training today,” Hunk tried to bargain, but Shiro waved him off with a fake irritation, “Come on, Hunk.”

Keith laughed a little and sat down with Lance beside him. He rested his elbows on the table and waited for Hunk to finish making his soup. Lance wrapped his arm around Keith’s waist and leaned on him, “How are you feeling, honey?”

     “I’m feeling fine. You guys need to stop being so worried,” Keith groaned out, nuzzling against Lance despite his voiced frustration. “I’m used to the flu. I’m not going to die.”

Hunk set the newly microwaved soup on the table and patted his back, “Yeah, guys, this guy has been through much worse than the flu, and-!”

The table went silent, everyone thinking about the two things Keith had been through that were a lot worse than the flu. They were all thinking the same thing. They were all afraid that these unspoken thoughts would lead to Keith having an episode, but Keith seemed ignorant to the tension in the room, thanking Hunk for the soup and starting to sip it. 

They all let out a deep breath, happy that a minor tragedy of the day was evaded by Keith’s happy mood that shielded him from the accidental slip on Hunk’s part. 

When breakfast was over, Shiro took Pidge and Hunk up to the training deck, and Lance and Keith decided to join them, their previous plans of going on a date being saved for a day when Keith felt better. 

Despite Lance telling him to rest, Keith wanted to join the training session, hating being left out of training when Shiro was giving tips on fighting. He grabbed Lance’s hand and pulled him up to the floor, saying with a grin on his face, “I’m feeling much better right now, so go as hard as you can on me.”

Keith was already breathless from dragging Lance up there, but he knew he would get over it quickly once his adrenaline started pumping. He put his fists up in a fighting stance, ready to fight Lance who was reluctantly agreeing to spar with a guy that was very likely to throw up all over him at any second. 

Lance put his hands up and stepped towards Keith first though he was going to try to go for a defense attack. They only fought for two minutes with nothing really happening before Keith fell to the ground on his knees, catching himself with his hands before he could fall completely. His breathing was ragged and his whole body was trembling with exhaustion. 

     “Keith are you ok?” Lance asked, bending down to help him sit up. 

Keith nodded his head quickly and looked up at him, “I’m fine, I just need to lay down…”

Lance tried to help him up, but Keith pushed him away, tears falling from his eyes for reasons not even he knew. He stepped back away from Lance and muttered out, “I’m done with training for today. I’m gonna go to bed.”

The four paladins looked at him with confused looks, watching as he stepped away from them and then hurried out of the room to go to bed like he said. Lance looked back at Shiro with wide eyes full of confusion, “Did I do something wrong?”

Shiro shook his head and looked at the door that was now shut, “Are...Are you guys sure you used protection?"

Lance’s eyes widened and he looked back at the door as well, considering the possibility of the condom breaking. He bit his lip and muttered out, “Shit…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for the next chapter!  
> I am so glad you guys are enjoying this and some of you even relate to the loss of a loved one.   
> All of your comments mean so much to me even if I don't get to reply to them.   
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and more are coming your way


	4. The Pregnancy

CHAPTER FOUR

* * *

 

Three weeks had passed, and Keith had caught on fairly quickly to what was going on with his body. There was no doubt about it that he was pregnant. He didn’t even need to take the test to confirm it, but when he did, he was proven correct. He quickly burned the test soon after though, not wanting Lance to find out about this. 

He was going to lose the baby at some point or another in battle anyways, so he decided telling Lance was unnecessary. Lance couldn’t survive another heartbreak of losing a child. He couldn’t look at his face as he failed him again, so he was going to try not to pay too much mind to the baby growing inside of him. It was only a matter of time before it died and it wouldn’t be a problem anymore. 

When he found out he was pregnant, he was able to mask all of the symptoms very well from the others now, knowing that they would catch on if he kept complaining about nausea or being exhausted. Though he had a chronic condition of both of those recently, he fought through it to keep the act up. 

     “Lance, what exactly are we doing on this planet?” Keith called out from the bathroom, pressing his hand to his stomach and looking in the mirror to see how noticeable his protruding belly already was. 

Since this pregnancy was a secret, he wasn’t able to see how far along he was, but he guessed he was already probably five weeks in. It looked about the same as his first month in the past two pregnancies, though it was a bit bigger. He sighed and put his shirt down as Lance answered, “I think we are just going to try to sign a peace treaty with this dangerous race that will hopefully only be dangerous to the Galra by the time we are done talking to them.”

So this was probably going to be where the baby died. Keith was yet again thankful he didn’t tell Lance about the pregnancy. 

They suited up, Keith shielding his stomach with his bayard so the others wouldn’t see how much his suit had grown around his belly. It was more noticeable with his suit on than when he was in regular clothes. They got into their lions and flew down to the planet that seemed to be free of the galra for now at least. 

The planet wasn’t as welcoming of Voltron as the other planets, but they were still safe as they were led up to the castle where the King and Queen awaited them. They were promptly led to a dinner of meat, meat, and more meat - something Keith couldn’t stand at the moment due to his pregnancy.

Lance was loving the menu though, eating everything handed to him with a smile on his face. He handed a drumstick to Keith and sang out, “Keith you haven’t eaten a bite! Come on and eat, cause this stuff is good!”

     “No thanks,” Keith pushed the drumstick away and looked in the other direction, trying not to feel nauseas. He pushed himself out from under the table and stood up, “I’m going to the restroom.”

Without waiting around to hear what Lance had to say about that, Keith left to go to the restroom. The baby was definitely sitting on his bladder this time around, making it impossible to go an hour without peeing at least twice. Maybe he should just stay in the restroom until one of the paladins came to check up on him and tell him it was time to go. He didn’t like anything the King and Queen were serving, and they seemed harmless enough anyways. He just wanted to go back to the castle and sleep in his bed until this baby died. 

What if the baby wasn’t going to die though? That was a possibility. Maybe it would die a few days, weeks, or even months after being born. What would he do then? It would be harder to hide the baby from Lance once it was born, so would he have to tell him by then? Should he tell him now? His stomach was only going to keep getting bigger, and Lance wasn’t stupid enough to let that kind of stuff pass by him. 

Keith sat down on the toilet, trying to take off his armor quickly in order to go pee in the toilet and not his suit. He got it off in time and sat down, letting out a big breath as the stress on his belly from the suit was lifted off of him for at least a few moments. He rubbed it lightly to ease the feeling of how fast his belly was growing. It was too fast to be comfortable, so he caught himself rubbing his tummy for comfort quite often. 

He wanted himself to stop though. He didn’t want to grow attached to the baby.

When he was done peeing, he stayed in the bathroom for a while, not wanting to put his armor back on just yet. Since the bathroom was empty, he decided to step out with half of his suit on. He was just going to rest on the sink counter until someone walked in. 

Though he made a plan to only doze off but still stay alert, Keith fell asleep after three minutes of laying against the mirror. He only managed to get ten minutes of sleep at the most before he was woken up with a tight feeling around his stomach and a kiss on his lips. He at first thought it was Lance waking him up in a loving way until he felt something sharp cut into his stomach only a little bit. 

That was enough for his eyes to widen and for him to become fully alert though. He looked to see that the person in front of him was a guard from the planet. The guard looked like some kind of mix between a lizard and a hyena that scared Keith when he saw him instead of Lance. Keith shouted out in fear and tried to kick him away from him, but the guard only pressed his nose up against Keith’s neck and smelled him, muttering out, “Everyone can smell you throughout the city… I’m so happy I could get my hands on you first.”

Keith looked down at his stomach that was now bleeding. The knife didn’t cut deep enough to hurt the baby, did it? Keith wished he had his suit on now, regretting taking it off and falling asleep as if he wasn’t in a world full of potentially dangerous aliens. Where was his bayard? 

     “How far along are you?” the guard asked, forcing Keith’s hands off of his stomach to touch his tummy to try to determine how big the baby was inside of him. 

Keith’s breathing started to quicken as fear and anxiety started caving in. Keith cried out for help, that being the only thing he could do at this point. He only managed to scream out Lance’s name once before the guard slapped his hand over his mouth and hit his stomach hard as a warning. 

He growled under his breath and held the knife up to Keith’s stomach, “It seems like the unborn baby is big enough to sell. This could make enough money to feed my family for at least three months.”

Tears fell from Keith’s face as he realized he was letting himself lose another baby in yet another painful situation. He almost gave up and let the guard cut into him to steal his baby and sell it this time, but something in him clicked, and he started fighting back more than ever. 

He bit the guard’s hand and kicked him back, shouting out for Lance or Shiro to come save him. He quickly threw his suit back on, wincing at how it rubbed against his new cut. He didn’t have time to worry about that though, because he grabbed his bayard and ran out of the room without a second thought about the guard. 

He ran into the dining room where the rest of the paladins were and shouted out, “You guys, we are leaving now!”

     “Keith?” Shiro asked, standing up from the table quickly. “Where have you been? We were planning to leave twenty minutes ago, but Lance said you went to the restroom.”

     “For twenty minutes?” Keith questioned, looking at Lance in anger that he was stupid enough to think Keith normally took that long in the bathroom. He shook his head though and gnashed his teeth as he started to walk towards the exit of the castle, “Whatever. Let’s just get out of here. I’m never coming back to this planet again.”

He was thankful the King and Queen weren’t in the room to hear him say that or else Shiro would have killed him for being so rude. The sound of guards running in their direction from down the hall made Keith forget all about manners though. His heart rate picked up as he shouted out, “Let’s get to the lions quickly!”

     “What did you do?” Lance asked, following Keith as he ran out of the castle anyways, followed by the rest of team Voltron. 

Keith rolled his eyes and pressed his hand on his stomach as he ran, “I fell asleep in the bathroom on accident, and the guards are a bunch of perverts I’m going to fucking kill if they ever lay another hand on me.”

     “They what?” Lance shouted out in anger, looking back at the castle. He turned back to Shiro as they were still running, asking him, “Should we really have an alliance with a planet that has guards that molested Keith?” he turned back to Keith who was next to him, “Did they molest you or did they do anything worse?”

     “Only molest,” Keith lied, not being able to mention how they threatened the life of their baby that Lance still didn’t know about. “They just kissed me and put there hands on me. That was it.”

     “Well I’m still going to kill them,” Lance countered, but Shiro interrupted him, “No you aren’t. We are just going to get off this planet before anyone does anything they regret.”

They rushed to their lions and hurried back up to the castle, all taking a breather when they were inside the safety of the ship. Lance stalked over to Keith though, looking at his suit and freaking out when he saw blood on the white part of his armor, “Keith! You said all they did was touch you the wrong way, so why is there blood on you?”

Keith looked down at his armor and clenched his teeth, guessing that his armor probably rubbed against the cut on his stomach that was bleeding through his black shirt under his armor. He rubbed the blood off his armor as much as he could, lying through his teeth, “I didn’t say I didn’t hurt them though. Go to bed, I’ll be there in a second.”

     “Babe, we should get you checked in the clinic just in-!” Lance grabbed Keith’s arm, but Keith jerked him off. 

He snapped at him in a shout without thinking, “I said go to bed!”

The rest of the paladins that were currently taking their suits off froze and stared at him with shocked looks on their faces. All of them looked to Shiro, knowing that he was the only face of reason for Keith when even Lance couldn’t succeed. He was the person Keith could never get mad at, and though Shiro hated to admit it, he knew that as well. 

     "Keith…” he started, stepping forward warily, “Do you want to talk to me about what happened? I’m sure whatever you are feeling right now is completely understandable, but you need to talk to us.”

Keith stepped back anyways, slapping Shiro’s hand away, “I don’t want to talk! I just want to get out of my armor and change into comfy clothes and stop talking to people like you that say they understand but they don’t!”

     “Then change!” Lance shouted out, irritated and confused why Keith was mad at him if it was only a clothing problem. Why was he caring about that kind of stuff anyways? That wasn’t like him. When the other paladins looked to Lance, he looked at them with furrowed brows and shrugged, “Well no one is stopping him! He is standing here snapping at everyone for something that he could be doing right now! Change and stop being a dick to me!”

Keith knew he was going through a wave of mood swings now. He was happy, tired, scared, angry, and now sad all in the last hour. He was the living version of an emotional train wreck right now. Fat tears started falling from his eyes as his lip trembled and he let out a muffled cry. He bit his lip before he could embarrass himself more in front of the paladins, and he placed his hand on his stomach, turning on his heel to grab his clothes from his suit pod and leave the room as he called out to everyone, “Don’t follow me!”

When he left the room, his tears reached his chin and he let out a sob. He still felt the baby inside of him. He still felt that pregnant feeling, but he knew that he would have lost the baby if he woke up any later. That thought alone was scary enough for him to feel like he lost the baby. 

He had no place to go except for the clinic to patch up his cuts and try to find some Advil for his ever-growing headache. When he got there, he took off his suit and put on his t-shirt and pants, only throwing his pants back off when he buttoned them and they were too tight around his stomach. His baby was growing too large and too fast. How long could he truly keep this a secret?

Now in just his shirt and underwear, he sat on the ground of he small clinic room and lifted up his shirt to tend to his wounds. The cut had already stopped bleeding, so all he needed to do was wash it, disinfect it, and hide it from Lance along with the baby bump. 

Keith cleaned his wound and checked in his underwear to make sure there was no blood and the baby was safe. For some odd reason, he felt relieved that it was alive. He placed his hand on his tummy and let out a breath of relief, “I’m so happy you are still with me… I couldn’t have another baby die from being stabbed.”

He bit his lip and looked down at his stomach without hatred for the first time since he found out he was pregnant. He smiled and tilted his head, pressing his hand against his skin to feel closer to the baby, “Maybe I should treat you nice while you are here. It wouldn’t be fair to you to only feel hatred for the short time you are technically alive. Have you been sad until now?”

He sighed and leaned his head back against the sink, “I wish I could be happy and tell Lance about you, but he doesn’t want to risk being happy only to lose another one of you little guys again. It’s best he doesn’t know about you, sorry.”

Keith’s eyes widened when he felt the baby jump a bit in his belly. He grinned and laughed under his breath, “I see, so you want him to know about you?”

There was a calm in him. 

Keith laughed at the communication, but his smile faded as he started to rub his tummy again, “Sorry little guy, but you might just have to stay a secret for right now… You aren’t exactly set in stone, you know? I’ll tell him when it is impossible to keep you a secret anymore,” he smiled, “Which won’t be too long from now.”

The baby jumped again, only letting Keith feel him from the inside since the baby was too small to be felt moving from the outside. He couldn’t wait until he got to feel the feeling of a baby kicking again if the baby lived that long. He also wanted to see the baby now that he was getting to feel it. Was it a girl? Was it a boy? He probably wouldn’t be able to find out now, but he would be able to at least see the thing that was living inside him. It was a comforting feeling to see that…

It was a too bad this thing was a secret, or else he would have Allura show him his baby. Of course… this was really only a secret from Lance, wasn’t it? He didn’t want Hunk, Pidge, or Coran to find out because Hunk and Pidge would let it slip to Lance as soon as they saw him, and Coran would unintentionally freak Keith out about pregnancy. It wouldn’t be too bad to tell Allura about the baby right?

With an urge to see his baby, Keith moved before his brain could stop him and he stood up, sliding his pants on so he could go outside the room. He could barely button up his pants, so he decided to just leave them open at the waist and hope his shirt covered his open pants when he woke up Allura. 

He didn’t realize how late it was until he knocked on the door and was greeted by a groggy Allura, rubbing her eyes and muttering out, “Who in space is at my door three hours past curfew?”

     “It’s three in the morning?” Keith asked, eyes widening as he looked around at the dark castle he didn’t even notice on his way to her. He bit his lip and looked down though, having more important things to worry about at the moment, “I have a secret I want to tell you….”

She paused and looked at him for a long few seconds before asking, “You woke me up to tell me a secret?’

     “It is a big secret if that makes you feel any better,” Keith looked down. “On a range of Coran secretly dyeing his hair orange to Shiro still being a virgin, I’d say it’s a solid Pidge used to have a crush on Lance.”

She sighed and tilted her head, “Do you want to tell me here, or?”

     “The clinic,” Keith answered, turning around and staring back at her, “Come on.”

Without much of a choice, but also an idea from the mice of what it could be, she followed him to the clinic to see what he wanted to tell her. When they got there, Keith sat on the clinic bed and took her hand placing it to his stomach as he explained in one short sentence, “I am pregnant.”

Allura’s eyes widened in a fake surprise, though the mice already told her about Keith walking back and forth in circles in his room, talking himself through a plan of how he was going to keep it a secret from everyone else.

     “Why did you keep it a secret?” she asked, pulling his shirt up to see that he was already fairly far along. “How? Wouldn’t Lance have seen this by now?”

Keith shrugged, “I make him do me from behind now so he can’t see the bump. Plus, lately I haven’t been in the mood, so it hasn’t been a problem,” he looked down at his stomach and answered her first question, “And I kept it a secret because Lance doesn’t want kids… I don’t know what to do.”

     “Doesn’t want kids?” Allura gawked. “But didn’t you guys want kids - pardon me for mentioning them but - when you were expecting Juliet and Steven?”

Keith nodded his head, “We wanted alive kids. We couldn’t get that. Lance doesn’t want to go through that again and I don’t blame him, but I guess a condom broke about a month ago and… I’m waiting for this one to die, but it has survived so far.”

Allura’s heart stung at Keith’s expectancy of how the baby was going to die at some point. It was sad to think that his last two kids died and he had no faith in this third one, but she couldn’t dwell on that thought for long. She was more focused now on how Keith said that the baby was only a month old in his tummy. She knew babies grew fast for Galra, only taking about four months before they came out, but Keith’s baby was already as big as an almost three month old fetus now. 

She raised Keith’s shirt over his baby bump  and brushed her hand across it, “This baby is huge for only one month!”

     “Well the first time I’ve had sex in a year was seven weeks ago at the most. This baby isn’t abnormal, is it?”

Allura shook her head, “No, don’t worry. But would you mind if I just run a check on it? Do you want to see the baby?

Keith smiled and nodded his head, “That would be nice.”

~(***)~

Keith and Allura were staring at the monitor showing Keith’s baby, eyes wide and mouths slightly dropped as they stared at what they found. 

     “I can’t…” Keith muttered out. “I’m-!” he turned to Allura, breathless and searching for words to say before he shouted out in fear, “I can’t have twins! That’s twice as worse than having one baby die! I can’t have twins die!”

Allura brushed her fingers through her hair, “I should get Coran. He can come up with a idea on how to go about this… Twins are going to be difficult to take care of.”

     “Twins are going to be difficult to lose,” Keith corrected, looking down at his stomach.  

He bit his lip as tears fell from his eyes. His lips trembled under his teeth before he cried out without thinking, “I don’t want to lose these babies! I thought I could ignore them and just wait for them to die, but the more they grow, and now that I know there are two of them… I don’t want them to die! I can’t go through that again…”

Allura sighed and placed her hand soothingly on Keith’s shoulder, “Those were two unfortunate freak accidents, but those were things that can be avoided!”

Keith shook his head, rubbing his belly and desperately trying to feel for his two babies’ presence, “The galra… before he killed Steven, he said Zarkon was going to make sure every time I got pregnant the baby wouldn’t last longer than a day if it even makes it to being born. He is after me personally for some reason, and I don’t want him to find out… Though after that last planet, he probably has received word of my pregnancy.”

     “Because their kind can sense when one is pregnant…” Allura muttered out, biting her nail out of worry. She stood up and turned to the door, “Hold on, I’m going to get someone that needs to know about this. Are you ok with that?”

     “It isn’t Lance, right?” Keith made sure, eyes widening in fear of that being the case. 

Allura shook her head though and turned the knob on the door, “No it isn’t. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Keith sighed and looked down at his stomach, cupping his hands around his belly and whispered out loud to his unborn babies, hoping they could hear him, “Why didn’t you tell me there was two of you?” He laughed a little under his breathe, though there was nothing about this situation that he found funny. “Please protect each other while you are both in there together.”

He looked up at the door when it opened and Allura and Shiro stepped through. His eyes widened and he curled his legs up a bit until his thighs hit his stomach, wrapping his arms around his legs to make sure his belly was covered, “Not him,” he muttered out, “Shiro, go back to bed. This is just a false alarm; I have a minor stomachache.”

     “He can help you, Keith,” Allura explained, pulling Shiro into the room further, ignoring Keith’s protest to keep him out of the secret. She set Shiro next to him and placed her hands on her hips, “Since Shiro is the leader, he has to know about you. Even more than Lance at this point, considering the circumstances.”

Keith bit his lip and looked down, “Shiro, you can’t tell anyone. I’m only telling you this so you can protect them…”

     “Protect the team?” Shiro asked, still groggy and confused as to what was happening. He was normally prepared for emergencies, but it was too late and too early, and Allura had woken him up in secret and led him to the clinic in his pajamas. 

Keith shook his head, “No…” his bottom lip trembled as he looked back up at Shiro, “I’m… I’m pregnant again with twins now.”

He waited for Shiro to make a response - angry, worried, or happy - to his news, eyes tearing up as he saw Shiro’s expression twist with fear. He shook his head and pressed the palm of his hand against the side of his face. He turned to Allura and muttered out quietly, “How far along is he? Are they healthy?”

Allura nodded her head slowly, “They are both healthy so far. Keith was cut on his stomach, but it wasn’t deep enough to reach the twins, so he is fine.”

     “And how far along is he?” Shiro repeated his question, desperate to find out when Keith made the mistake of getting pregnant.

Keith rubbed his stomach soothingly, “Seven weeks… I guess I have about nine weeks left if twin galra pregnancies are the same as single galra pregnancies.”

     “They are,” Allura nodded her head, turning to Shiro with a concerned expression on her face. “What do you think we should do?”

Shiro’s eyes widened and he looked down at Keith’s stomach, “Well this is good, right? Don’t you and Lance want kids?”

     “Not anymore,” Keith answered, surprising Shiro. He looked up into Shiro’s eyes and continued when he saw the confusion in them. “Lance told me we shouldn’t try for a baby until the war is over, because he doesn’t want to lose another child….. I agree with him. I don’t want to lose another child, which is why I tried to ignore the twins growing inside me until I couldn’t keep myself from loving them anymore. I know they are going to die though, so I can’t tell Lance about them.”

When Shiro asked why he thought the babies were going to die, Keith explained to him about the Galra’s promise that Zarkon was going to kill off every last offspring of his until he couldn’t even get pregnant anymore. When he told Shiro that, Shiro’s fist curled up in anger and he wanted to find a solution immediately to the problems his little brother figure was facing all on his own for a while. He pledged not to tell Lance or anyone else for that matter about Keith being pregnant, but he did everything he could to protect him as subtly as he could.

~(***)~

Three weeks later:

     “Ok, everyone go to the training deck,” Shiro announced as he sat up from the dining room table. “We have a mission to retrieve prisoners from the Galra tomorrow, and we need to be ready.”

With everyone done with breakfast already, they got up from the table and started walking to the suit room until Shiro stopped Keith on his way out. 

   “Keith, you can go back to your room and rest,” he said once the others had left, Lance looked worried when Shiro kept Keith from leaving, but he left anyways. 

Keith’s expression contorted with annoyance, and he shook his head, “No, I’ll be fine to train. I still have to go on missions, so I might as well be prepared.”

Shiro surprised Keith when he pressed his hand against Keith’s stomach, shaking his head and saying, “In the suit, it’s going to be obvious to even Lance that you have at least one baby in you. If you want to keep it a secret, you are going to have to hold back from training for missions and missions all together for a while.”

     “And how will I do that without making it obvious to Lance that something is up anyway?” Keith asked, not wanting to train but arguing anyways. 

Shiro sighed and patted his hand on Keith’s shoulder, “Allura and I have you covered, so just relax, ok? You need it. You have to do everything for three people now, so it is your overall mission to keep them happy.”

     “Keep them alive…” Keith muttered, placing his hand on his stomach. He bit his lip and looked back up at Shiro, “I’ll be in my room. Thank you for helping me with this.”

Shiro smiled and hugged his younger brother, “No problem. Just come get me if you need anything.”

     “I will,” Keith assured him, starting to step back to go to his room. 

He then turned around with a farewell wave to Shiro, and went back to his room, immediately taking off his pants and getting into bed. His belly had grown to the size of his belly a month before he gave birth to Steven, making him wonder how none of the other paladins had caught on to what was going on. He wore a loose t-shirt that hid his shape entirely, but if someone pressed on it just a little bit, they would be able to feel the roundness of his belly immediately. 

Keith layed in bed for a while, rubbing his tummy and finding comfort in the light touches found in his babies’ kicks. He could now feel them kicking with his hands and not just on the inside, feeling a light shove against his stomach every time they moved. 

They loved it when he placed his hands on his stomach when alone, but they went crazy when he was laying down with Lance in bed. He had to keep himself from wincing from the wild kicks the babies caused during the night when Lance was beside him. He had to keep himself from grabbing Lance’s hand and making him feel how excited their babies were to have him near. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he pulled the covers on over his stomach when the doors to his room slid open and closed and Lance walked in. He faked a smile to hide his worried surprise and said in a sweet tone, “Hey honey, you are back early. Is everything ok?”

     “Oh yeah,” Lance grinned, flopping onto the bed beside Keith. “Shiro told me to look after you since you were sick, so thank you for getting me out of practice!”

Keith mentally cursed at Shiro for sending Lance into the room with Keith. He loved having Lance there with him, but it was tiring to try to hide the fact that he was pregnant from him these days. His stomach revealed it all if he sat comfortably, so he always had to hunch forward to make it look smaller. It was painful, and his back hurt twice as much as it normally would at the end of the day. 

Still though, he put on a smile and covered up his stomach with a pillow, saying, “Well that was nice of him to send you here. You don’t have to stay though if you don’t want to.”

     “No I will,” Lance smiled, turning over in the bed to get closer to Keith as he wrapped his arm around his chest. “I love spending time with you, so I’m happy we can have alone time!”

He started to inch his arm down to Keith’s thighs, but before his hand could cross over Keith’s stomach and feel the baby bump, Keith slapped him off, scooting away quickly before he could feel anything. 

     “Don’t touch me,” Keith hissed, covering his stomach up with a pillow quickly as he glared at Lance. 

Lance sat up as well, confused with the sudden change in Keith’s mood. He looked down at his hand that Keith slapped away from him, thinking back to what he could have done to make Keith mad at him. He looked up to Keith who was leaning against the wall with a tired look in his glaring eyes, “Are you ok? What’s going on with you?”

    “Nothing’s wrong with me!” Keith snapped. “Just… just don’t touch me like that by surprise! I have every right to slap you away.”

    “But it’s just me!” Lance argued, sounding more like he was whining more than anything though. He caught himself on the edge of his words, biting his bottom lip to hold him back from saying anything else. He looked down at Keith covering up his stomach and sighed, “Babe, I know it’s close to impossible that you could be pregnant, but I seriously think we should just check, and-!”

     “Leave me the fuck alone, I’m not fucking pregnant!” Keith screamed, getting out of bed and keeping the pillow over his stomach. 

He didn’t have any pants on, but he walked out of the room anyways, needing to get away from Lance to relax somewhere else without having to worry about anyone finding out about the baby. He was tired, he was grumpy, he was hungry, and he was moody all at the same time and he just wanted to be alone to deal with it. He loved Lance, he really did, but with such a big secret being held from him, it was hard to be around him at the moment. It was exhausting. 

Keith stalked over to the kitchen, not in the mood for anything else except for chocolate pudding. He knew Hunk fixed some earlier and there were a lot of leftovers in a bowl in the fridge, so at least he had one for sure good thing going for him at the moment. 

He took out the big bowl of leftovers and a spoon and started walking to the lounge area in hopes of alone time with the couch and his pudding in there. As he was walking to the lounge area though, he ran into Allura whose eyes were immediately drawn to his lack of pants. 

She couldn’t help but stare as she noted to him, “Um… Keith? Where are your pants? And why aren’t you wearing them?”

     “They don’t fit anymore,” Keith answered, walking past her. 

He wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. 

She turned on her heel and started to walk with him anyways, asking more questions because she had no idea that he wasn’t in the mood for any kind of conversation, “Do you want me to try to find you some that will fit you? We can pull out the clothes you wore when you were pregnant with-!... when you were pregnant before.”

Keith shook his head, “Nope. Lance will recognize the maternity clothes. Gotta keep it a secret, remember?”

     “But shouldn’t he find out at some point?” Allura asked, still following Keith as he walked into the lounge and sat down on one of the white couches. “You are pretty late in your pregnancy, so I don’t see the harm in him finding out about-!”

     “Allura, Juliet died a week before I was supposed to give birth to her,” Keith interrupted her, words dripping with venom as he stared at her. “Steven died right after he was born. There will never be a time to tell him where the babies are safe for sure. Even after they are born, even after they are toddlers, even after they are ten years old, teens, or even adults.”

Keith started to tear up, looking down at his pudding as he cried out, “The Galra are going to kill them. They are going to kill me… They hate hybrids and that’s why they are targeting me and my babies, and I… I don’t want to lose these two too! I’m just waiting for them to die, and I don’t want Lance to feel the way I do every day, just waiting for something to go wrong or for me to screw up again and lose them!”

Allura quickly took his bowl of pudding and placed it on the table, taking him into her arms and hugging him as she tried to calm him down. 

The other paladins came in from training at that moment, falling quiet when they saw what was going on. Keith was crying. No, he was sobbing into Allura’s shoulder, his whole body shaking as he muttered out about how he was going to screw up again and lose ‘them’. Who was ‘them’? 

Shiro knew what he meant and started to walk towards Keith, ready to reassure him that everything was going to be ok, but Pidge and Hunk were left clueless as to what was going on. Was Keith just having another episode where he was stuck in the past, or was this something entirely different? 

Pidge and Hunk stepped forward warily, quietly asking Allura when she looked up at them, “What is going on?”

She just gave them a sad look that confused them and went back to tracing circles onto Keith’s back as she muttered out, “They will be fine… We upped our castle’s defense systems and no Galra are ever getting back in here except for you and your…” her voice trailed off when she realized she had an audience. She turned to Hunk and Pidge and asked them both as kindly as possible, “Pidge, could you go get Keith a blanket, and Hunk, could you maybe start fixing dinner? Keith what do you want?”

Keith sniffled and shrugged, “Chocolate… and spaghetti.”

She turned to Hunk, “Can you do that?”

     “I can,” Hunk slowly replied, afraid to think about what could be going on. 

He and Pidge both had started getting ideas a few weeks ago for what was happening to Keith, but they kept quiet about it, not wanting to set him off if he was still in denial about it. They had noticed his mood swings and belly rubs when he thought he was alone. They had watched closely as his stomach grew bigger as the weeks went on. It was now though that confirmed it all for them that Keith really was pregnant with what sounded like more than one baby this time too. 

They both went off to complete their separate missions to get tasks done that would make this situation a little less miserable for Keith. 

When Pidge and Hunk left, Allura and Shiro turned back to Keith and started to talk him down from his fit that was already starting to calm down anyways. Shiro placed his human hand on Keith’s stomach and rubbed it lightly, warily watching Keith to make sure his actions were welcomed, “I’m so sorry for sending Lance to you. I thought it would help, but I wasn’t thinking about how hard it probably is for you to hide your stomach from him.”

Keith nodded his head and looked down, “Shiro, I love you, but that was really stupid…”

     “Yes it was,” Shiro agreed, tilting his head and smiling a little as he reluctantly admitted, “But Allura is right, you do need to tell Lance eventually.”

     “I don’t want to!” Keith cried out in frustration, shaking his head in refusal to ever tell Lance anything. 

Shiro sighed and looked to Allura, “Fine then, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But do you maybe want to get the nursery ready again for the twins?”

     “No,” Keith stated sharply, crossing his arms over his pillow. 

Shiro bit his lip, “Do you want me to get it ready for the twins? You don’t have to see it or grow attached to the room at all, but when the twins do make it, you will have a room ready for them that you can enjoy at the time.”

Pidge entered again with a blanket, catching the end of his sentence. 

     “I’ll help too,” she added, covering Keith’s bare hips and legs with a blanket, “And I’m sure Hunk would love to help out as well.”

Keith looked down, “If I don’t have to see it… I don’t want to get attached and then lose them.”

     “You won’t lose them, but no, you won’t have to see it either,” Shiro smiled, looking up at Pidge, “Thanks Pidge.” He turned back to Keith and sighed, “Now I’m sure it will take an hour or two before we can eat dinner, so you can rest here or in my room in the meantime.”

     “I’ll rest here,” Keith smiled softly, starting to pull away from him and Allura to lay down on the couch. 

They stood up and watched Keith get into a comfortable position, his belly big enough to trick anyone into thinking he was at the full term of his pregnancy with only one baby. 

Allura left to go tell Coran about Keith’s pregnancy and how he was wanting to have it hidden from Lance, just to make sure Coran didn’t realize it and blurt it out loud in the room with Lance around. Shiro and Pidge went to start cleaning up the nursery room from the time Keith destroyed the room and remodel it to fit two babie this time. 

When it was time for dinner, Pidge went on to the dining room and Shiro went to go wake up Keith, helping him up off the coach and ushering him to the dining room while also trying to keep the blanket around Keith’s waist. 

Everyone met up in the dining room, Lance already being there when Keith and Shiro walked in. Keith bit his lip when he saw Lance, afraid he was going to be mad at him now since he snapped at him earlier. He was mad at himself now in hindsight, thinking back to how poorly he treated Lance even though Lance didn’t do anything he thought was wrong.  Keith was expecting to get the silent treatment from him for tonight, but instead, Lance walked up to him immediately and apologized, “Keith I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said those things earlier. I know how much you hate the mention of pregnancy, I was stupid to even suspect that.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he tilted his head, “You are sorry?”

     “Yes,” Lance nodded his head and hugged him. “I’m so sorry.”

Keith pulled away from the hug quickly, but he then leaned up and kissed Lance on the cheek, smiling and stepping back as he said, “I’m sorry too… for snapping at you like that. You didn’t deserve it.”

He gave Lance a quick kiss on the cheek and walked over to his seat at the dining table, trying to hide the subtle waddle in his step because of his belly. Everyone else sat down after him, the other paladins giving each other side glances, silently wondering to each other how long Keith or they could keep the pregnancy a secret. 

They all ate the spaghetti, talking amongst themselves about different subjects. Pidge, Allura, and Coran spoke in Altean about Keith’s pregnancy, Shiro and Hunk talked about what the next mission was, and Lance and Keith laid their heads on each other, silently enjoying the company of each other and the others. Lance had tried to make conversation, but Keith was too tired to do much else other than eat. 

When Hunk started to take the plates up though, Keith stood up and declared to the table that he was going to go to the restroom. 

     “Do you need help?” Shiro asked without thinking, causing Lance to laugh out as he turned to Keith, “Yeah, Keith, do you need us to help you put the lid down?”

Keith furrowed his brows and flipped him off, “Fuck off, Lance.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he turned back to Shiro, “Woah, why is he so crabby today?”

     “I wish I could tell you,” Shiro sighed, putting his head in his hands in order to be shielded from any questions Lance could possibly have after Keith’s mood swing. 

Keith had walked to the restroom by now, hating how moody he was around Lance, but he knew it couldn’t be helped because of his pregnancy. He sat down on the toilet and pulled his shirt up, looking down at his swollen belly that always made him happier. He couldn’t believe that maybe he was going to have two babies in just less than five weeks. It was enough to make him actually excited about giving birth again. He knew he was going to have to do it no matter what now, but it was just a matter of if he was going to give birth to alive babies or dead ones. 

Finished with using the restroom, Keith got up and wrapped his blanket around him, stepping forward a few steps until something on the ground caught his eye. 

There was blood. 

His eyes widened and he looked at the toilet to see blood in there as well. It was definitely his own blood. His bottom lip trembled as he quickly realized what was going on. He turned to the bathroom door and opened it quickly, dropping his blanket as he screamed out, “Shiro! Allura! Please…” he broke out into a sob and fell to the ground, holding his stomach and desperately trying to feel for movement. 

All of the paladins rushed into the bathroom immediately and saw the blood on the floor and the toilet. Shiro quickly picked Keith up and called out to Allura who was still investigating the scene, “I’m taking him to the clinic. Come with me, so we can check on the…”

His voice trailed off when he turned around to see Lance standing in the doorway with a confused and worried look on his face. He tilted his head and asked in a quiet tone, “What is going on?.... Why is Keith-!”

     “I’m sorry,” Keith muttered out, digging the palms of his hands into his eyes as he kept on crying. He sucked his breath and shouted out of frustration, “Galra didn’t even attack this time; why can’t have just one fucking-!” He stopped himself before he let his pregnancy slip to Lance. Lance was never going to find out about it now. 

He let his face fall into Shiro’s chest and continued to cry, grabbing at his shirt and punching him lightly every time a surge of anger pressed through him. Shiro grabbed both of Keith’s wrists and held them together, trying to calm Keith down as he brought him to the clinic, trying to assure him that everything was going to be ok over his screams and cries. 

Keith curled up in a ball on the clinic bed when Shiro set him down, holding his stomach and feeling in between in his legs to see if there was anymore blood. He brought his hand up to his face to see only a little bit more blood though it was enough to keep him on edge. 

     “I can’t lose anymore babies this time,” he declared, sniffling and wiping his tears from his face with his clean hand. “I won’t be able to take it after this… I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to kill myself, I’m going to kill myself, I’m-!”

     “Keith calm down,” Shiro placed his hand on Keith’s stomach, letting out a quick breath before he continue to speak, “Don’t move at all or else you will risk actually having a miscarriage. This might just be a scare or it could be something entirely different. You just need to breathe and keep the twins safe. Can you do that?”

Keith started to breath slowly, in-and-out, looking at Shiro with wide and trusting eyes. He held his stomach lightly, asking him, “Are they really not dead yet?”

     “We’ll get Allura in here soon to find out, but in the meantime, just relax.”

     “Ok,” Keith nodded his head, laying his head back. “Make sure Lance doesn’t find out.”

Shiro nodded his head and looked to the door as Allura came in and locked the door behind her, “I told Lance that Keith accidentally cut himself, thinking that he would leave me alone after that, but now he is asking even more questions than before. 

     “This is the exact reason why I didn’t tell him though,” Keith sniffled, rubbing his swollen belly. “If he would have found out about the pregnancy, he would be more of a wreck right now than me. I’m so sick of going through this….”

Allura turned on a few machines and started working to find out if the babies were ok, ignoring Keith’s words for now since she had a feeling the babies were fine. He would have felt a lot more pain than it seemed like he was feeling now if he was having a miscarriage. 

When the monitor on the screen showed his twins, still alive and hearts beating at a normal pace, she grinned and held his hand as she congratulated him, “They are still alive and healthy.”

Keith let out a sigh of relief, “Oh thank God… But what was the bleeding for if not a miscarriage?”

     “It says on my health monitors that it was just extra blood flowing through caused by intercourse. Did you have sex with Lance lately?” Allura asked innocently, though Keith’s face turned red and Shiro awkwardly turned around as if he could avoid hearing Keith’s answer by doing that. 

Keith just nodded his head, “Last night… Did he go too rough?”

Shiro let out a snort and started to walk out, waving as he said, “I’m going to go check on Pidge and Hunk and see what they are doing. I’ll also tell Lance that you are ok.”

     “Ok,” Keith answered, rubbing his stomach soothingly. 

Allura brushed her hair back behind her ear with her fingers, awkwardly replying with, “...No. You were both fine. Having sex in general was what made extra blood flow and some came out. It’s a common thing here on Altea and probably for the Galra, but it also happens to some humans as well. You are completely fine.”

     “So I shouldn’t have sex anymore?” Keith muttered out, looking disappointed though he was overall happy that that was the only outcome and not his babies dying. 

Allura laughed a little and shook her head, “No, I’ll give you something to help with the extra bleeding. In the meantime, you should take a shower and maybe get prepared to tell Lance about the pregnancy. I need him to be on board with the whole thing in order to help you have a healthy rest of your pregnancy.”

     “Tell him tonight?” Keith had to repeat, his heart beating fast and hard against his chest now. 

Allura nodded her head and helped Keith off of the clinic bed, “If possible, that’d be great. But go take a shower right now to wash the blood off.”

     “Ok,” Keith agreed, leaving the clinic to go to his room as he thought about how he was even going to tell Lance that in less than six weeks, he was giving birth to not one but two babies that he had no idea were even growing inside of Keith in the first place. 

He turned on the shower and hopped in, trying not to look at the blood that was going down the drain. He knew now that it wasn’t from a miscarriage, but that didn’t change the fact that the image still scared him. 

He stayed in the shower for a while, having to turn the temperature down to cold since he didn’t want to pass out from the steam. He was stuck in his thoughts, going through the many possible ways his news could be taken by Lance. Lance could be happy which seemed like the most likely possibility, but he could also be angry that Keith didn’t tell him or angry Keith didn’t abort them or worried that they were probably going to die soon. He feared which outcome was going to happen. 

When Keith turned off the shower, he heard the door to the bathroom open as Lance called out, “Keith? Buddy, what is going on?”

Keith stuck his head out of the shower and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his chest so it would cover his stomach as well. He stepped out slowly and said, “Lance we need to have a talk.”

     “Uh, yeah we do!” Lance’s voice cracked when he tried to hit an emphasis on his words, his eyes staring deep into Keith's, “How did you cut yourself? Why did you freak out so badly? What’s going on?”

Keith sighed and placed his hand on Lance’s shoulder, “I need to sit down, and I think you will too when I tell you what is going on.”

     “Well that’s not really assuring,” Lance muttered out, following Keith to the bed to sit down with him. 

Keith sat down and turned to Lance who was now beside him, lips sealed tight as he waited for an explanation for everything that was going on. Not knowing exactly how to say what needed to be said, Keith decided to show Lance instead. 

He unwrapped the towel from his body and laid it on his legs as he turned to Lance, taking his hands and pressing them to his stomach as he muttered out, “I’m three months pregnant… I have less than six weeks left before they are due.”

     “W-What….” Lance looked up at Keith with wide eyes and his mouth slightly ajar. “You are pregnant? And they? How many are in there?” he pressed his hands against Keith’s stomach voluntarily now, trying to see if this was a prank or not. 

Keith smiled and pressed his hand over Lance’s hand, guiding him over to where the babies were actively kicking now as he explained, “They are twins. I don’t have a name for them yet because I didn’t want to get attached and I don’t even know the genders, but they are in there.”

     “Holy shit…” Lance breathed out, tears falling from his eyes. He then practically jumped onto Keith and hugged him, crying and laughing at the same time, “You are pregnant with twins! You are pregnant with twins… This is crazy! This is amazing! I’m… You are not allowed to leave the castle and I refuse to go on any missions away from you until you give birth and the babies are safe.”

Keith laughed and nodded his head, “Talk to Shiro about it, cause that’d be great.”

Lance grinned and leaned his head on Keith’s shoulder, pressing his hand against the places on Keith’s stomach where the baby kicked, kissing his neck and asking in a serious tone, “Why did you hide this from me for so long?”

Keith sighed and hugged Lance back, “I was scared… of losing the baby again. I didn’t want to go through it again, but I really didn’t want you to go through it again. I didn’t want another loss to tear us apart like it did last time, so I decided to keep it a secret until they eventually died or I had the babies.”

     “Keith…” Lance sniffled, finally taking his hand off of Keith’s stomach. “I told you I never wanted to be apart from you again. I’m so sorry you felt the need to hide this from me, but I really am happy about this… damn… twins! Can you believe it? I am going to protect the three of you with all my power, I swear. These are going to live, ok?”

     “Do you really think so?” Keith asked, eyes widening at the confidence Lance held. He was sure Lance had his doubts, but the words really did help. 

Lance nodded his head and kissed Keith on the cheek, finally pulling away from their hug to stare into Keith's eyes, “I believe in us. We can do this,” he leaned forward and kissed Keith’s belly, brushing his fingers lightly across the scar left over from the sword that was stabbed through Keith’s stomach the night of the Galra attack, “No Galra is ever going to hurt you or our babies again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!
> 
> Sorry this chapter was so long, but a lot of stuff needed to be done in this chapter. Thank you guys so much for your comments and support! This is my favorite fic to write just because of the wonderful comments you guys leave. The support you guys give this project is what motivates me to write more, and I couldn't be more thankful to you guys for that. 
> 
> As much of a thank you as I can give, here was a long chapter a day early because I was so motivated to get it done. I hope you guys have a great week and enjoyed the chapter!


	5. The Third and Fourth Babies

CHAPTER FIVE

* * *

 

     “Ok Keith, you were due to give birth yesterday. Don’t you want to just look at the nursery and see what we all did with it?” Pidge whined, tired of Keith just laying around not appreciating her decorating skills of the nursery.

Keith was leaning on Lance on the couch, feeling exhausted and rubbing his belly in hopes his contact with the twins would make them come out soon. He shook his head and muttered out to her in response, “I need it to be a surprise. Just in case-!”

     “You are safe,” Shiro assured Keith, though he knew when to stop urging on the pregnant guy, “We can wait until after you give birth if that is what you want though.”

     “It is,” Keith assured him, sitting up and pulling his hair back into a mid ponytail. 

He tapped Lance’s shoulder and stood up, saying in a bit of a demanding tone, “Lance follow me. I need you to um… help me out with something.”

Lance had a few ideas of what Keith meant by that request and was willing to wholeheartedly help him out with whatever his needs were. He got up quickly, happily chirping out a, “Of course!” before he left the room with, making it less than subtle what he was hoping Keith needed him for. 

Keith led him back to their bedroom and Lance started to get undressed, taking his shirt off as Keith took off his stretchy pants and underwear slowly. 

     “You need help with that?” Lance grinned, checking out Keith’s butt from behind. 

Keith turned around and gave him a strange look, whimpering a little as he asked, “Why did you take your shirt off?”

Lance tilted his head in confusion and shrugged, “Because you wanted to have sex? Was that not what we came in here for?”

Keith shook his head slowly, pulling his shirt down to cover his wet thighs, “I… I accidentally,” he bit his lip and looked down at his wet pants and underwear now on the ground, “I peed a little.”

     “A little?” Lance exclaimed, looking at Keith’s wet clothes on the ground. 

He noticed Keith’s expression turn into one of shame and quickly took back his words, “I mean, yeah, that’s totally reasonable. You have two babies bouncing around on top of your bladder. Accidents are supposed to happen.”

     “I was too tired to go to the restroom, so I… I....” Keith started to cry, hiding his face in his hands out of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry! I’m stupid and lazy and fat, and I’m sure the whole team is sick of me being pregnant!”

     “Keith, calm down!” Lance pulled him in close for a hug. “The team loves you. I think we are all secretly thankful for you being pregnant as well because we don’t have to go on missions anymore. This break while we are all waiting for you to give birth is long needed for all of us.”

Keith sniffled and looked down, “But you don’t even get a break because you are always having to take care of me.”

     “That’s all I would want to do anyways with you pregnant or not,” Lance smiled, kissing Keith on the forehead. 

He then picked up Keith’s wet clothes and put them in a laundry chute that led directly to the washing room. Next, he ushered Keith into the bathroom and started to fill up the bath. He took off his pants and boxers and then Keith’s shirt before kissing his tummy and saying in a cheerful tone to the twins, “You two love giving Keith a hard time, don’t you?”

Keith grabbed his stomach out of surprise when both babies started kicking to the sound of their dad’s voice. Lance laughed and drummed his fingers against Keith’s stomach as if to kick back to the them. He looked up at Keith and smiled, “They are so lively in there. I’m so excited to see them in real life.”

     “Do you have names for them in mind, because I don’t,” Keith muttered out, still smiling though. 

Lance shrugged and grinned, “A few. Do you want to name them though or me?”

     “How about you name one and I name the other? We can each have a boy and girl name picked out and whichever one comes out first, you can name, and whichever one comes out second, I can name. Sound good?” Keith asked. 

Lance nodded his head and stepped into the bathtub, “Sounds like a plan!”

He sat down at the back of the tub and Keith then got in, sitting down in his lap and leaning on his chest, finally relaxing as he let out a sigh, “This was long needed. We should have done this sooner.”

     “Had a bath?” Lance asked, smiling to himself. "Next pregnancy, I’ll make sure we take a lot more.”

     “Next pregnancy?” Keith raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I want to try again if the twins end up dying… I’m sorry Lance, but-!”

     “No, no!” Lance interrupted, placing his hands on Keith’s belly. “I meant later when the war is over with and we head back to Earth with the twins. We aren’t stopping at two are we?”

Keith hesitated for a moment, not sure how to respond until he eventually nodded his head side to side and muttered out an unsure response, “I guess if we are safe… and the twins are alive.”

     “They will be,” Lance kissed Keith’s cheek. 

He hugged Keith and they soaked in the tub for a bit, only getting out just as a loud sound was heard outside of the castle, causing the whole ship to shake. Keith’s eyes widened as the castle alarms went off. He almost fell with the castle shaking so much, but Lance held him stable, quickly wrapping the towel around Keith and running into their bedroom to get some clothes on. 

     “The Galra are here,” Keith cried, starting to walk out of their room with just his towel on. 

Lance quickly grabbed him and pulled him back into the room, sitting him down on the couch as he said, “You remember the plan, don’t you? You stay in this room no matter what unless accompanied by someone else on our team. Now I know this is going to be uncomfortable, but you have to put your suit on.”

Keith shook his head, “That won’t protect the babies!”

     “But it will protect you and will be better than just a towel wrapped around you,” Lance muttered, forcing Keith back up again and putting him into his armor. 

They kept Keith’s armor in their room just in case a situation like this arised. Lance’s suit was still in the armor room, but he hoped it didn’t come down to him having to get into his paladin armor as well. He grabbed Keith’s bayard and handed it over to him, kissing him on the cheek as he already started to back up, “I’m going to find out what is going on. Don’t leave this room even if you go into labor, ok? I’m locking the door, and you can’t open it no matter what. I and the other paladins will be able to get in on our own without you opening it for us.”

     “Can you please just stay alive?” Keith bit his lip, trying to keep his breathing under control as he put his helmet on again. 

Lance nodded his head and kiss Keith once more, now on the lips for good measure, “My ipod is in the second drawer if you need to listen to music to calm down. I love you.”

     “I love you too,” Keith called out as Lance ran out of the room, locking the door on his way out. 

Keith took Lance’s ipod out of the drawer and laid down on the bed, putting the earbuds in his ears and pressing play so he could start to relax. He turned the volume up as loud as they could go and hoped he wouldn’t hear any sounds of danger with his music playing so loud. 

     “Everything’s going to be fine,” he muttered to himself and the twins as he rubbed his stomach lightly. “It was probably just an asteroid and I’m freaking out over nothing…”

A few minutes passed… 

     “When you guys are out and alive, I’ll be able to protect you better,” Keith was explaining to his twins with the music still playing loudly. “It’s just at the moment, I have to be careful how much I move with you inside of me. That’s why I’m defenseless when it comes to protecting you guys.”

An hour passed.

Keith was dosing off in and out of sleep until he caught a shadow looming on the ceiling in front of him. Someone had walked into the room. Keith’s eyes widened and he started to turn to the figure in his room, “Lance?”

He froze in place when he saw a Galra in front of him, holding a sword and walking towards the bed slowly. Keith immediately stood up, yanking the ipod away from his ears as he shouted out, “You aren’t going to hurt me this time!”

Keith transformed his bayard into a sword and held it out in front of him, glaring at the Galra as he shouted, “Why is Zarkon trying so hard to ruin my life? This isn’t even about Voltron anymore is it?”

     “It will always be about Voltron. You are part of Voltron, so you are a target.” the Galra answered, grinning and pulling out a gun once Keith’s sword was out. A sword wasn’t going to protect him now at this distance. He had his armor on, but one shot at his stomach was going to be a death sentence to both him and the twins. 

Keith tried to buy himself some time, “Where are the others? How did you get past them?”

The Galra laughed and shrugged a bit, “The blue one is dead if that is what you are asking.”

     “He’s not,” Keith smirked. “He wouldn’t go down that easily.”

     “He held out the longest,” the Galra cocked his gun. “But one shot to the head once his helmet was off was enough to get him out of my way.”

     “No…” Keith muttered out, looking down. Tears formed in his eyes and he looked back up at the Galra, screaming out, “No! I’m going to fucking kill you!”

The galra soldier pointed his gun at Keith’s stomach, “And lose your third try of a hybrid abomination? Zarkon has changed his orders to bring you back to the castle to have the baby instead of killing them before it is born.”

     “But why would he change his mind? What would he want to do with them when they are born?” Keith asked, still keeping a fighting stance though his exhaustion was starting to win him over. 

     “He wants to make the heathen grow up to be just like him of course. He will teach the child to become a brave Galra soldier and hate other hybrids like you. As for you now, Zarkon may kill you or make you produce more children to benefit the Galra Empire,” he grinned and licked his lips, “I hope he goes with the second option.” 

Keith shook his head quickly, “I’m not going to be separated from my children. I’m not going to Zarkon.”

     “Either have you and your children both die here or let your children live while you pay the price of their survival,” the galra soldier tried to bargain. 

Keith still shook his head, “I’m not losing another kid.”

     “Fine then,” the galra lowered his aim a little bit. “I’ll take you forcefully.”

He then shot his gun, causing a loud sound to echo off the walls of the room as the bullet hit Keith's thigh just above the break in his armor. Keith screamed out in pain and bent over, holding his stomach to try to protect it from any more potential shots. 

The galra didn’t shoot a second time though. He instead put his gun away and took advantage of Keith’s moment of weakness to snatch the bayard form his hands and throw it towards the other side of the room before picking Keith up and carrying him out of the room. He made sure to be careful with Keith’s stomach, knowing that Zarkon wanted the mut galras alive when they were brought to him. 

Keith shut his eyes in pain, forgetting to look for Lance as he was lost in his worries about the twins as the galra brought him to his ship. He was then tied up behind the seat of the ship before the galra sat down and flew them away from the castle and towards Zarkon’s ship. 

When they arrived on Zarkon’s ship, the Galra roughly forced Keith to stand up, making him walk even with the bullet still in his thigh. Keith cried the whole way to Zarkon’s throne room, holding his stomach and begging him to tell him the truth about Lance being alive. The Galra stayed quiet though, leaving Keith in a silence that made him sob even more. 

They got to Zarkon’s throne room and the Galra let Keith finally fall to the floor, Keith just barely catching himself and then rocking back on his knees. He held his stomach, feeling the babies’ kicks that assured him they were still alive despite his rough handling. 

     “You shot him?” he heard Zarkon’s voice ask, causing him to look up at the ruler of the Galra empire. 

Keith immediately started screaming at him as loud as he could, “Don’t you dare hurt my babies! And Lance better still be alive or else I’m going to fucking murder you! I’m going to fucking murder you!”

Zarkon smiled and turned to the galra soldier still standing by Keith’s side, “Get him healed and make him stay in a cell until he gives birth. Apparently there are multiple muts inside of you?”

Keith shook his head, “Don’t… Don’t touch me! No one is allowed to touch me! I’m going to kill you all!”

     “He is a feisty one,” Zarkon admitted, smirking to himself. “Get him changed into prisoner clothes as well once he is healed. And since he is already pregnant, I am permitting just for today for the guards to do what they please with him. Just keep the mixed brats inside of him safe.”

The soldier next to Keith grinned and grabbed Keith’s arm tightly, “As you wish.”

Keith was then taken to one of the Galra healers that healed him fully against his wishes but also to his relief. Even though he wasn’t in pain anymore, he was still screaming at the Galra every chance he got, shouting slurs at them until he ran out of names to call them and cuss words to jab at them. By the time he was taken to his cell, his voice was hoarse and his whole body was tired from the effort to struggle against the Galra soldiers. 

He had a private cell all to himself for reasons he was afraid to admit to himself. The Galra soldier shoved Keith into the room and demanded, “Take off all your clothes.”

     “...Why?” Keith sniffled, covering his stomach up still even though Zarkon would have the soldier’s head if he hurt his babies. 

The galra showed Keith the prisoner uniform as an explanation, but as soon as Keith reached for the stack of clothes, the galra pulled it away from him at the last second and shook his head, “But first, strip.”

Knowing that the soldier was just messing with him, Keith started to do as he wished, slowly taking off his armor and then his underclothes until he was completely naked. Keith kept his hands over his stomach and looked down, his face a bright red color, “Give me the clothes.”

The galra grinned and dropped the clothes to the ground before walking over to Keith and reaching his hand between Keith’s thighs to cup his groin. Keith closed his legs together and moaned out when the soldier’s hand was stuck between them. The soldier laughed to himself, pressing his hand on Keith’s chest to walk him back into the wall. 

Keith was pressed up against the wall as he muttered out weakly, “Please don’t… I don’t want to… I don’t want to do this! Please stop!” He came to his sense fully and started kicking and hitting at the soldier to get away from him. 

The soldier reached up and wrapped his hands around Keith’s neck though, choking him as he growled out, “Zarkon says I’m not allowed to hurt your little brats, but he said nothing about me not being allowed to hurt you. Do you want to get shot in both thighs this time?”

Keith cried out as the soldier pushed him to the ground roughly, letting go of his neck when his head hit the floor. Keith shut his eyes and screamed out for help though he knew no one was going to come, “Please! Help me! I don’t want to do this! Get away from me!”

     “Shut up!” the soldier shouted, slapping Keith in the face. 

He then started to lower his pants, spreading Keith’s legs so they were on both sides of him. Keith’s eyes widened and without thinking, he reached his hand up to the galra’s face and scratched him. 

The galra yelled out in pain and grabbed his sword out of his belt as a reaction, hovering it over Keith’s stomach as he shouted out, “I’ll stab you right now and just tell Zarkon that your muts died of a natural miscarriage. He’ll never know, but you will! And you’ll know that it could have been avoided if you just shut up and let me have my way with you.”

     “Please don’t, I’m sorry!” Keith covered up his stomach, trying to turn away from him, but there was no way he could move out from underneath him. 

The galra grinned and started to raise the knife up in order to plunge it back down into Keith’s stomach, but instead, he was thrown off of Keith with one powerful move of a sword that came between them. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he look up and around at whoever just saved him. Was Lance alive? No, it couldn’t have been Lance… Lance didn’t use a sword. The galra’s head would have been blown to bits if he was here to save him. Since Keith was the only one on the team to use a sword, who was here to save him?

Keith looked up at the person holding the sword, and his eyes widened when he saw Lotor standing in front of him. He quickly sat up as Lotor began to speak in a serious tone, “Are you a half-galra?”

Keith was afraid to answer, knowing how much the galra hated ‘muts’ like him. He stayed quiet, slowly reaching over for his paladin armor until Lotor brough the tip of the blade up to his cheek and asked again, “Are you half-galra?”

     “Will you kill me now?” Keith asked, placing his hands over his stomach to check if the babies were still kicking. His heart was beating too fast for him to clearly feel the twins. 

Lotor sighed and quickly retracted his sword, putting it away in his belt before he turned around and muttered out, “I don’t advocate for my father’s beliefs. Get dressed in your prisoner clothes and I’ll bring you to a nearby-!”

Lotor stopped talking when his eyes landed on the sight of the red paladin armor laying on the ground in the cell. He quickly turned back around to Keith and asked, “You are the red paladin?”

Keith stood up, leaning against the wall with the help of his hand, still holding his stomach as he nodded and looked down, “I’m not going to fight so don’t try…”

     “The red paladin is a half-galra?” Lotor asked almost to himself instead of Keith. 

Keith nodded his head anyways, “I am…”

     “And you are pregnant?” Lotor just now noticed Keith’s large baby bump. His mouth was slightly ajar as he continued to speak in shock, “I thought I was just fighting humans… Is this why Voltron has vanished for the past few weeks?”

     “I just wanted to keep them safe this time,” Keith muttered out, sniffling as tears fell down his face. “Zarkon had the last two killed and then I found out I was pregnant again with twins this time, and-!” he started crying again, causing Lotor to uncomfortably shift towards him. 

He picked up the red paladin armor and handed it to Keith, “I couldn’t care less about the paladins of Voltron, but since you are here for reasons of you being half-galra, I have no choice but to help you.”

    “You will?” Keith asked, eyes widening in surprise. 

Lotor nodded his head hesitantly, “I fight for my own beliefs too. My father has no right to treat half-galra like this, so get into your armor quickly, and I’ll take you back to your castle. And don’t worry, because I don’t have an interest in helping my father out with Voltron, so I won’t turn on you.”

Keith believed his words since he was willing to take any opportunity to get out of here at this point. He quickly got into his paladin armor with a little bit of help from Lotor. After a few minutes, he was ready to go, and Lotor started to lead him through the halls towards where his ship was in the hanger. 

There was no need to be secretive or in a hurry, because no one was aware of any kind of prison break yet. Lotor knew his father was going to have his head the next time he saw him, but thankfully his father didn’t have long to live anyways with his health. 

Lotor’s crew was on a different mission while he was here saving Keith, so it was only him and Keith that needed to make a break for it out of Zarkon’s ship. He placed Keith behind his seat where he would be safe enough for the small trip and then sat down in his own seat before flying out of the hanger as fast as possible before anyone would notice them missing. 

Keith could barely remember how he got to the ship, but he remembered the coordinates, Coran and Lance forcing him to remember where they were based for his pregnancy just in case something exactly like this happened. He muttered out the coordinates to Lotor before Lotor started to fly in that direction. 

     “It will take an hour, but are you alright?” Lotor asked, trying to fill the silence between them. They were both enemies to each other for their own causes, but for now he was going to forget about this whole war going on between Voltron and his father. 

Keith sniffled and held his stomach, “The twins are alive… But the galra soldier that captured me told me that Lance is dead. If he’s dead then…. I don’t know what I’m going to do if that’s the case,” Keith started crying again. 

Lotor sighed and tried to keep talking to calm Keith down, “Do you have names for them? Are they boys or girls or both?”

Keith shrugged and looked down, “We don’t know… we didn’t want to get attatched just in case something like this happened and I wasn’t so lucky. Lance has two names picked out and I have two names picked out though,” 

     “And what are your names?” Lotor asked, turning to look at Keith. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

Keith shrugged, “I like the name Cora for a girl. That is Lance’s sister’s name. And I like Kashi as a guy’s name because that is what I used to call Shiro and it sounds enough like a regular name…”

     “Those are pretty names,” Lotor noted, soon opening his mouth to speak again until Keith suddenly shouted out, causing him to jerk back in his seat out of surprise. He turned to look at Keith and yelled, “Don’t yell so loud in such a closed space!”

Keith’s breathing was quickening and he was holding his stomach, looking up at Lotor with wide eyes, “I’m… I’m either having miscarriage or I’m going into labor! I don’t know!” 

     “Well how do you find out?” Lotor asked, putting his ship into auto-pilot and getting out of his seat to check on Keith. 

Keith took off his helmet and started taking off all of his armor, breathing heavily as he shouted out in pain once more, “I don’t know! Y-You need to check if I’m bleeding.”

     “Bleeding where?”

     “Between my legs.”

     “No!”

Keith grabbed Lotor’s suit and pulled him close growling out, “If I could see between my legs I would do it myself, but I’m desperate, so you are going to have to man the fuck up and look between my fucking legs!”

Lotor’s eyes widened and he finally looked down, sliding Keith’s pants to his knees as he checked for blood. He bit his lip and shook his head, “There’s no blood.”

     “Are you sure?” Keith breathed out. 

Lotor nodded his head, “Yeah..”

     “Then I’m going into labor.”

The next hour was spent with Lotor double tasking on helping Keith through his contractions and making sure the ship was flying in the right direction towards Keith’s ship coordinates. Lotor felt like he was going to be driven crazy with how loud Keith was being from pain, but he managed to make it, feeling thankful when he saw the castle of voltron coming up in the distance. 

He looked down at Keith whose water hadn’t even broke yet and sighed, “Looks like the blue paladin will get to witness his children’s birth as well.”

     “We are here?” Keith asked, breathlessly. 

     “Hold off having birth until I get you inside the ship,” Lotor muttered out, flying down to what looked like the entrance of the ship. He wouldn’t care about the security going off this time since he wasn’t planning on attacking. 

He landed on the side of the ship and helped Keith into his under clothes and helmet before helping him to the castle. Keith used his helmet to open up the door and stumbled inside even with Lotor holding him up. 

     “I should leave before they think I’m the one that took you,” Lotor muttered out, starting to turn back to leave until cried out in pain and grabbed him before he could leave, “No, I need you here at least until I find Lance! Please…. I can’t get around on my own like this,” Keith growled out in pain again before muttering out in a low voice, “I’ll… I’ll tell them you saved me. I know you are very capable of killing us all in this state, so I promise to keep my word as you kept yours.”

Lotor clenched his teeth, going against his better judgement to help the desperate half-breed out. He sighed and helped Keith up again, “Where do you think the rest of the paladins are?”

Keith looked down at his stomach, his hands trembling from the pain of the contraction passing at the moment, “They might be in the castle control room… That’s where Lance last went off to.”

     “Ok then I’ll take you there,” Lotor started walking, staying alert even though he had armor on to protect him from any kind of attack. 

Before they could get to the control room, Keith’s grabbed onto Lotor tightly and screamed out in pain, his whole body shaking as liquid splattered to the ground under him. His eyes widened and he looked up at Lotor as he shouted out, “It’s happening… My water broke! I need to find-!”

He was cut off by the sound of Lance’s voice yelling out, “Keith! You’re back! What happened? What… What is Lotor doing here?”

Lance ran up to them, a limp in his step and his armor covered in blood, but he was alive which was enough. He pulled Keith away from Lotor and stood between the two of them, “What are you doing here? Get out of here before the rest of the team comes in here and kicks your ass before you even have a chance to-!”

     “Relax, Lance,” Keith let out a shaky breath, reaching out to Lotor again. “He saved me from Zarkon, so we are going to be neutral with each other just until the babies are safe,” Keith screamed out in pain again and held on tightly to Lance, falling to the ground as the other paladins rushed into the room, just as bloody as Lance was.

     “Keith!” All of them ended up shouting at different times all at once before their eyes made their way to Lotor, causing all of them to put up a fighting stance once more. 

Lance raised a hand to them though and said, “The war is paused for right now. Lotor helped Keith get back.”

     “He did?” Shiro asked, lowering his bayard and looking to Lotor for confirmation. 

Lotor awkwardly nodded his head, and looked to Keith, “I should probably leave now though. You should also move the ship before my father finds you again.”

Keith fell to the ground, holding to Lance as he cried out again, “It hurts! Give me pain medication or something!”

Lotor started to back up, “I’ll find a way to take my father’s ship off course before he finds out about Keith’s escape. I wish you luck with your birth, and-!”

     “Thank you,” Keith muttered out, now being held up in Lance’s arms. “I.. I owe you everything. I owe you three lives! I…. How can I repay you?”

     “Saving half-breeds in part of my mission,” Lotor answered simply, starting to back up towards his ship, turning to leave since he trusted them enough not to shoot him from behind. He waved one more time and called out to them before he left the castle completely. “Maybe after this war, I’ll get to see you all as allies instead of enemies.

He was then gone, like a bat in the night. The sound of his ship flying away as fast as it could go was barely heard for a few seconds until he was thousands of miles away. After the almost miracle of an enemy being in their ship not to attack them but to save one of their members and his unborn children, the group finally turned their attention back to Keith and helped him too the clinic to lay him down on the bed and give birth in a preferred way this time. 

Allura and Coran shooed Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge out of the room so the clinic wouldn’t be too crowded and hot for Keith. Lance was allowed to stay obviously, being the hand holding support Keith needed to get through this. 

By the time they were finally ready to help Keith give labor, the first baby was already starting to come out, its cries covered up by Keith’s screams of pain. He gripped Lance’s hand, almost crushing his bones in the process as Allura helped pull the baby out, quickly cutting the imbilical chord and handing the baby to Coran to take care of. 

Keith eyes widened and he looked over at Coran holding the baby, “Let me see it! I want to see it just in case something happens! What is the gender? Lance, what are we naming it?”

Keith’s string of questions were interrupted by his own screams breaking in again, the second baby starting to come out. He shook his head and pulled Lance close, “I can’t do this! It hurts too much! I need to take a break… Allura, I need to take a break!”

     “Babies won’t let you take breaks,” she admitted to Keith, looking down at a head starting to come out. “Just a little longer and then you can rest for as long as you want.”

Lance held Keith’s hand, but was more eager to see their newborn in Coran’s hands. He tried to sneak behind Keith’s chair, looking over at Coran and muttering over to him, “Can you maybe tilt the baby over to me so I can see it?”

Coran looked up at Lance and smiled, tilting the baby over to him so he could her face, “It’s a girl. Very healthy as well, though I will have her checked later to make sure.”

Lance let out a sigh of relief, tears threatening to escape his eyes as he looked at his daughter, skin as tan as his with little patches of wet black hair on her head. Her eyes were closed so he couldn’t see the color of her eyes, but he was sure they were just like Keith’s, showing the Galra part of her with purple eyes. 

He was pulled back into a different part of the reality when Keith squeezed his hand again as hard as he could and pulled him back to where he supposed to be next to Keith. Keith screamed out in pain again, shouting out to Lance in a growl, “You can stare at our kid when both of them are born, now get this second one out of me! Fuck!”

     “Don’t cuss around the babies,” Lance tried to tell Keith, but Keith snapped at him, jerking him closer to his face as he growled out, “I love you Lance, but unless you push out a big fucking baby out of you two times in five minutes, don’t fucking tell me what to do.”

     “Duelly noted, sorry!” Lance quickly squeaked, looking to Allura. “E.T.A. for the baby yet?”

Allura reached her hands in between Keith’s legs and assured Keith, “Just a few more pushes and I’ll be able to pull this one out.”

Keith shut his eyes and screamed out, pushing as hard as he could and refusing to take a break until he heard crying coming from the baby as Allura pulled it out the rest of the way. Lance squeezed Keith’s hand back and smiled, saying in his ear, “You did it! You did so great, Keith.”

Tears were rolling down Keith’s face, his skin red from screaming so much. His lip was trembling as he nodded his head and muttered out, “Let me see them…”

Lance looked to Coran just as he handed Keith their daughter, grinning as he noted to Keith, “It is a healthy girl. I’m seeing that the other one is a boy as well.”

     “Have you thought of a name for her yet?” Keith asked Lance, admiring what their daughter looked like. He was excited to see what Lance thought about for a name to give their daughter, and he was also happy to get to name their son that was going to be in his arms in just a moment. 

Lance laughed under his breath and pet their baby’s hair back, eager to hold her but waiting patiently since Keith deserved to hold her first. He placed his hand on Keith’s shoulder, “You can say no to this idea, but when I was thinking of names, I kept thinking about naming our baby after one of my siblings if it was a girl. Like Cora? My older sister will actually cry tears of joy when she finds out we named our daughter after her when we go back to Earth.”

     “I was actually planning on calling one of them Cora if I got to choose a girl name,” Keith smiled, brushing his finger lightly across his newborn daughter’s cheek. “She is so beautiful...”

Coran glanced at Allura with a smile as she threw her bloody gloves away. He handed their son to Keith, helping him hold both of them in his arms as Keith gasped and looked at Lance with wide eyes, “They both look identical! They both look so much like you.”

     “Really?” Lance asked, looking closer at his son now. “I think they look just like you, to be honest.”

     “I’m going to name our son after my older sibling too,” Keith smiled, looking down at his two children. “Kashi… It sounds stupid, I know but-!”

Lance kissed him by surprise and muttered out as he pressed their noses together, “Cora and Kashi are great names for the twins. I love them so much!”

Keith nodded his head slowly, still smiling even though he was growing tired. He shut his eyes for a few moments and nuzzled Lance, “You wanna hold ‘em?”

     “Yes,” Lance bit his lip, trying not to cry even though tears were falling down his face as he thought about Steven and Juliet. He never got to hold them, but now he was finally getting to hold his and Keith’s children. 

He took them from Keith’s arms, Keith too weak to lift them up a few inches to him. He placed a kiss on Keith’s cheek and turned away to rock the twins lightly and admire them. He couldn’t help but think about the future with him and Keith raising a daughter and a son. Would the war be over by the time they were at least five? Maybe ten? Lance shook his head and tried to tell himself that their kids were definitely going to grow up on Earth were things were safer than an all out intergalactic war at least. 

     “Keith, we are definitely not letting our kids go to the Garrison when they grow up, right?” Lance asked, hearing no answer from Keith. 

He turned to Keith and laughed a little, “You fell asleep already?”

Allura and Coran were about to open the door to the paladins, but they then looked at each other and then to Keith who was still awake, seeing now that he was just staring out in front of him with no knowledge of what was going on anymore. 

Blood dripped onto the ground.

Lance saw Keith's open eyes that looked almost lifeless, his own eyes widening as he looked to Allura, “What is going on? Why isn’t he moving?”

Allura quickly went to where his legs were still apart, looking to see that too much blood than a healthy amount had come out of Keith, dripping off the bed and creating a puddle on the floor that they hadn’t noticed until now. 

Her eyes widened and she looked to Coran, “He lost too much blood! How did I not notice this? We have to give him a substitute right now.”

     “What’s going on?” Lance asked, holding his children close as he stepped closer to Keith and tried to wake him up. “Keith wake up!” he shouted out, looking up at Coran, “He was fine just a second ago! What happened?”

     “Coran, get Lance out of the room for now and inform Shiro about what is going on. I’ll get started on transfusing fluids into him to try to make up for loss of blood. Lance, go show the rest of the paladins the twins, will you?”

     “Can’t Keith just get into a pod? He is fine, right? I need to stay with him!” Lance argued, holding the twins in one arm so he could grab Keith and try to shake him awake. “Keith, come on!” he looked back to Allura, “Put him in the pod now! He can’t die!”

Allura frowned and lightly pushed Lance aside with one arm, “Keith can’t get into the pod because this is a natural way he lost the blood. There is nothing the pod can heal, so we have to do this without the help of the pod, ok? He is part galra, so he will get through this fairly easily. Now go to the paladins and take care of your children. Keith will be perfectly fine in a few hours.”

Coran ushered Lance out of the room and pulled Shiro aside to tell him what was going on while the others were gushing at the newborns Lance was holding, “Keith bled out too much, so we are going to try to make up for it with an infusion. It should be quick.”

     “He will be ok?” Shiro made sure, eyebrows furrowing in worry. 

Coran didn’t seem sure of himself, but he still nodded his head and started to walk back into the room where Allura was with Keith, “I’m sure he will be. The galra are a very strong race, so something like this shouldn’t be detrimental to him.”

     “Ok,” Shiro let out a sigh of relief, taking Coran’s word with much trust. He then looked to Lance and muttered to himself as Coran closed the door to the room with Keith inside, “For everyone’s sake, I hope Keith lives….”

Lance was looking down at his twins when Shiro walked up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder as he assured him, “Keith will be fine. Coran wouldn’t give false hope, so I have faith he is going to be ok.”

     “Wait, what is happening?” Hunk asked, looking up from the babies with wide eyes. “I thought that everything was fine, and Keith was just resting! What is going on now?”

     “You don’t understand, Shiro,” Lance croaked out, tears falling from his eyes. “There was so much blood… It was everywhere! No one can survive that!”

     “Keith is Galra,” Shiro assured him, looking down at the twins that looked so much like both Keith and Lance in different ways. He smiled and pet the heads of the babies lightly with his human hand, “He’ll make it… You guys are finally going to be a happy family.”

Lance walked over to a sofa close to the room with Keith in it and sat down, looking down at the twins as he muttered out, “If Keith dies, there will truly be no point to anything anymore… no point to fighting, no point to raising kids, no point to living.”

     “Don’t say that,” Pidge reprimanded him, peering over his arms to look at the babies now. She didn’t smile when looking at them, but she didn’t exactly express disgust which was what she usually did when she saw a kid. She just nodded her head and stepped back, “Yep, they are cute. I won’t mind them being around.”

     “I’m a space uncle now!” Hunk exclaimed in realization, looking to Shiro with wide eyes and arms spread out for a hug, “We are both space uncles!”

Shiro didn’t seem too fond of the idea of hugging anyone at the moment with the idea of Keith possibly dying looming over him, but he still put up an assuring front for everyone else and fake smiled, hugging Hunk and musing, “I’ve never been an uncle before, so I don’t even know where to start.”

     “I’m an earth uncle too, so I’ll show you how it’s done,” Hunk grinned, looking to Lance. “You should go take a shower and change out of your paladin armor, so you can be ready by the time Keith is ok again! I’ll hold the twins until then.”

Shiro stepped forward too, shyly wanting to hold at least one of the twins as well. He held his human arm out, almost looking like he was begging to hold them in a silent way, “What are their names?”

Lance smiled softly and looked down at them, tears dropping onto their cheeks from him, “Our daughter is named Cora and our son is named Kashi… We both named them after our older siblings.”

Shiro’s eyes widened, “Kashi? Keith really named his own son after me?”

     “Of course, he-!” Lance’s voice cracked and he quickly handed the twins off to Hunk. He shook his head and stepped away from everyone, “He can’t die! The one time our kids actually survive and he doesn’t? This is so fucking-!” Lance turned around quickly and punched the wall behind him, hurting his own hand more than the metal material of the wall. He bowed his head and started to cry, “This is all so fucking unfair…”

Without giving the others a chance to console him, he ran off to take a shower and change into his clothes, needing desperately to be alone right now. He ran into the paladin armor room and took off his suit quickly, letting it fall to the floor in a bloody heap, not even caring to pick it up. His whole body was trembling and weak from the attack that had happened on the Galra just earlier that day or even late yesterday. He had no idea what day it was right now, but he was going to have to hope that someone recorded that for his own kids’ future birthdays. 

He changed into his regular clothes and made his way back to his and Keith’s room, trying not to cry until the sounds of his cries could be covered up by the sound of running water. He pressed his hand against the wall of the shower as the water poured over his face, washing off blood and masking his tears even though there was no one around to hide them from. 

     “Don’t die…” he muttered out, his cries starting to turn into sobs. “Please don’t die…”

Before he could scream at his brain not to think about what life would be like without Keith, he immediately thought about what it was going to be like to raise kids without Keith, sleep in a bed without Keith, fight this war without Keith, live… without Keith. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do any of those things without Keith. He couldn’t even imagine anything more without screaming out a blood-curdling scream that could probably be heard from across the ship where the paladins were. 

He washed off the rest of the blood quickly and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt before hurrying back out to where the twins were. 

His hair was still wet and his eyes were puffy as he still kept crying, but he tried to act calm as he asked, “Is Keith ok yet? What is going on? Has there been any news?”

Shiro was holding Kashi while Hunk was holding Cora and they both looked up at him at the same time, shaking their heads slowly and saying, “No news yet.”

     “Do you want me to go get an answer on how he is doing?” Pidge asked from where she was sitting between Hunk and Shiro. Lance noticed she had Cora’s hand wrapped around her pointer finger, making him jealous that he wasn’t able to hold his own baby at the moment because he was so fearful for Keith’s life.

Lance nodded his head almost absentmindedly, staring at the twins and trying to pull himself together for them. Pidge got up and walked over to the door before Lance slumped down in her spot between Hunk and Shiro. He looked down at his knees and muttered out, “I hate this so much…”

     “Keith will live,” Hunk assured him, handing Cora over to him with a nudge before he smiled and said, “And you two are going to be great parents. You have been wanting to have one of these for a while, and now you have two? That is awesome…”

Lance smiled and took Cora from him, holding her as carefully as possible and examining every bit of her sleeping face. His eyes started to water, “It makes me wonder what Keith felt when he held Steven for the first time while he was still alive. I couldn’t imagine losing Cora or Kashi to anything now that they are born, so I can’t imagine how Keith must have felt to hold his own little being in his arms and have that taken from him… I just want him to be able to hold the twins and know that the three of them are going to be safe forever. I need him to live....”

Before Hunk or Shiro could respond, Pidge came out of the room Keith was in, looking a bit traumatized but happy nonetheless as she exclaimed without thinking of the sleeping twins, “Keith is alive! He is going to stay alive, they stabilized him!”

Lance let out a breath of relief and quickly stood up, holding Cora up to his chest, “Is he awake? Can I see him?”

     “He is sleeping,” Allura came up from behind Pidge, her gloves covered in blood. 

She started to take them off as she said, “We won’t even have to put him into the pod. He should rest tonight because he needs to sleep anyways, but in the morning, you two can enjoy your happy family finally.”

Lance stayed the night in the clinic room, sleeping in a chair next to Keith’s bed with his upper body resting against the bed. When morning came, Lance woke up to the feeling of fingers wrapped around his hair, tightening their hold and grabbing onto him hard as Keith woke up in a panic. 

     “Where are the babies?” Keith asked, gripping Lance’s hair and looking around frantically from his weakened laying down position. “Please tell me…” he choked on his own tears that were starting to fall, “They didn’t die did they?”

Lance shook his head quickly, sitting up and staring at Keith with wide eyes as if he was seeing a ghost, “No, no, they are in the nursery. Do you want me to go get them for you? I can bring them to you.”

     “Please…” Keith answered breathlessly, sounding as fragile as he looked. 

He was pale and thin looking from losing so much blood. His stomach was still fat underneath the clinic blanket from where the babies once were though which was comforting to Lance in a way. 

Lance did as he was instructed and ran off to fetch the babies for Keith, bringing them back quickly but still carrying them carefully in his arms. He handed them both to Keith, making sure he was just as careful with them and would be able to hold them up safely in his weak state.

     “How are you doing?” Lance finally asked, putting his hands on his hips as he watched over Keith protectively. 

Keith brushed his thumbs over the babies’ cheeks and sniffled, still smiling though, “They are alive, and that’s all that matters…”

     “Keith…” Lance started to say, but Keith interrupted him by saying, “I’m exhausted and my whole body aches from just giving birth to two big babies, but I’m fine.”

Lance smiled and let out a sigh of relief. He leaned forward and kissed Keith’s cheek, “If you are happy then I’m happy. That’s what matters to me,” he smiled a little and laughed under his breath, “We are finally going to get to raise kids… Aren’t you excited?”

Keith smiled and nodded his head slowly, his eyes growing heavy from exhaustion taking him over once again, “All of us are going to survive to see the end of this war… And then we are going to have an even bigger family, ok?”

     “A bigger family?” Lance smiled at how cute Keith was when he sleepily rambled on about fantasies for their family. 

     “Eight kids,” Keith muttered out, looking up at Lance and smiling. “I want us to be sick of them by the time we are old, ok?”

Lance laughed under his breath and leaned down to kiss Keith, “Eight kids it is. We are going to be the biggest and happiest family space has ever known.”

     “Yes we will be,” Keith smiled, kissing Lance back before pulling away to stare at his babies again. 

His alive babies. 

     “We will be…” he muttered out again to himself, a smile across his lips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment for the last chapter!
> 
> I decided to put 6 chapters down to add an epilogue so I won't say anything much here. I just want to say once again, thank you so much for all of the comments! I can't believe how much love this fic is getting, and even though I can't reply to all of them, every single one of them make my day! Thank you so much again, and I love that you all are enjoying reading this!


	6. Part Two - The Fifth Child

**Part Two: The Fifth Child**

Three years later, Zarkon was finally defeated and the war was officially over.

     “I can’t believe we actually did it!” Lance mused, now laying in bed after the celebration of Voltron’s triumphant win. 

They had put the twins to bed before the late night celebration, so it was just him and Keith alone in their room. Keith was stripping down to just his boxers when Lance decided to get up and hug him from behind, “Are you tired, or do you want to celebrate a little bit more?”

Keith grinned and turned around in Lance’s arms, placing his hands on his shoulders as he answered him, “After a day like this, I feel like celebrating all night.”

The both made their way to the bed, taking off whatever little clothes was left on them until Keith was on top of Lance, straddling him. Lance gripped Keith’s hip with his hand as he reached behind him to grab a condom and lube out of the bedside drawer. Keith took the lube from Lance but put the condom back, grinning as he reminded Lance, “The war is over.”

Lance tilted his head in confusion, “Yeah?...” his eyes then widened and he nodded his head, “Big family.”

     “Big family,” Keith repeated and leaned down to kiss Lance. 

After prepping both himself and Lance, he went down on Lance’s boner, moaning out in pleasure as heart bounced and he gripped himself tighter around Lance’s length. He edged forward on top of Lance as he mumbled out, “I’ve been wanting you to get me pregnant again for three years… I can’t wait for you to fill me up, and-!”

Keith quickly covered his mouth, eyes wide and face flushed red with embarrassment. He shook his head and kept riding Lance, muttering out an apology, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. That was weird.”

Lance moaned and shook his head, “It’s not weird. Let’s go all night until you are pregnant.”

Keith nodded his head and continued to ride Lance again, moaning out and rocking back and forth through the pleasure and pain until Lance came into him, moaning along with him and wiping sweat off his back with his fingers.  Keith bent over and let his head fall on Lance, feeling too hot and tired to go on anymore, “You are a lot to take in.”

     “The view is pretty beautiful from where I am too,” Lance replied sweetly, kissing Keith’s neck and making sure to leave a hickey in its spot. 

Keith shook his head though and placed his hands of Lance’s hands that were on his hips, “No, I mean your… dick… it is a lot. It is exhausting, holy shit.”

Lance laughed and brought one of his hands up to Keith’s head to hold him closer, “Why thank you! That means a lot coming from Mr. Stamina.”

     “I’ll show you Mr. Stamina,” Keith grinned, taking Lance’s comment as a challenge now and sitting up. “We are going to stay up all night until I’m pregnant again, remember? I hope you can take this all night long, cause we are gonna-!”

Their door slid open and both of their heads snapped to the entrance, looking down to the little silhouette of a figure standing in the light of the doorway. 

     “Daddy?... Papa?...” the shy voice called out into the darkness of the room where Lance and Keith tried their best to stay perfectly silent and still. The little voice called out again, “Kashi and I can’t sweep… Can we sweep with you?”

     “Where is Kashi now?” Lance gave in and broke the silence to talk to his daughter, not having much of a choice since she would throw a fit if she didn't get an answer. 

     "He is in our woom. He won’t stop cwying.”

Keith sighed and pushed himself off Lance’s dick with a grunt, “Go get Kashi, and you guys can sleep with us.”

After he said that, the little figure toddled away to go get her brother, giving Keith and Lance time to get ready and make the room child friendly again. Keith sighed and slid off the bed, getting into his boxers and a t-shirt before retreating to the bathroom to wipe any sweat and other liquids off of his body with a towel.  Lance did the same, making the sure their sheets were clean, which thankfully this time, they were. He walked into the bathroom after putting his underwear on and wrapped his arms around Keith, letting his hands cup Keith’s stomach.

     “You think we got lucky tonight?” Lance asked, kissing Keith’s neck and trailing down to his chest. 

Keith grinned and placed his hand on his stomach, looking at himself in the mirror, “We’ll find out naturally I guess. If we got pregnant with twins with you wearing a condom that one time though, I’m sure our luck with getting pregnant without one at all is very high.”

Lance laughed, “You are still glad that condom broke though, right?”

     “Couldn’t be happier,” Keith grinned, hearing the feet of their two toddlers pitter-patter against the hardwood floor of the room, running up to them quickly and hugging their calves. Keith smiled and looked to Lance, still pressing his hand against his stomach as if he could already feel a new baby growing inside of him. 

Lance kissed Keith one more time and ushered Kashi and Cora over to the bed, picking them up and helping them onto it. Keith was next onto the bed, laying down and letting Kashi curl up into his chest, preferring to be cuddled by Keith than Lance. Lance was fine with that though since Cora always preferred to be cuddled by him more than Keith on nights when they wanted to sleep with the comfort of their parents around them. 

Lance got into bed last, reaching his arm over Cora and Kashi to hold Keith and pull them all closer to him. No bad dreams could reach his kids and no bad things could reach Keith in his arms. They were all safe. They were going to stay that way. 

The next few weeks went by with the castle traveling back to earth slowly, unable to teleport due to Cora and Kashi being too young to safely go through the effects of the device. The days didn’t go by slowly though. Kashi and Cora were two toddlers full of energy that needed to be watched constantly in the castle. 

Allura and Shiro always helped out with babysitting while Keith and Lance got some rest or alone time throughout the day with Shiro playing dress up with Kashi and Allura and Coran teaching Cora about the star constellations. While Kashi and Cora were busy, Keith and Lance tried to have sex and try for another baby or just enjoy themselves, but they mostly ended up falling asleep on top of each other before anything could happen. 

One night after they put the kids down for bed, they looked at where the ship was at the moment and realized that they were starting to pass the planet they buried Steven and Juliet on. Keith’s eyes widened and he ran to the control room, “What are you doing? Why are we not stopping?”

Allura turned to them with a confused look, “We were supposed to stop?”

     “This is the planet Steven and Juliet are buried on, right?” Lance asked, also frantic due to the thought of going back to Earth without even visiting their graves. 

Allura was reminded of how humans liked visiting the graves of the ones they have lost and nodded her head, turning to Coran, “Can we stop? It shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

     “I'll put us in route, princess,” Coran gave a sad smile, starting to turn the ship back around in the direction of the planet. 

Keith placed his hand over his heart, his eyes glassy from tears threatening to escape them. He turned and buried his head into Lance’s neck, letting out a strained sigh, “We almost missed it… We almost forgot about them.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he wrapped his arms around Keith, quickly assuring him, “They aren’t by their graves, they are with us all the time. We can never forget about them since they are always beside us, ok?”

Keith nodded his head, wiping his tears on Lance’s shirt, “I hate that I still cry over them… I should be over this! It happened four years ago!”

     “You have every right to still be sad over them,” Lance whispered into Keith’s ear, waving to Allura as he started to usher Keith out of the room slowly and subtly. It was going to be one of those nights where they both went to sleep early. Lance let Keith’s head fall on his shoulder as he continued to speak, “Let’s rest until the castle lands, alright? You’ve seemed tired all day, so maybe you just need some rest.”

They got to their room and Lance helped him undress into just his boxers before laying him down on the bed. He then took off his own clothes until he was wearing just his underwear as well and joined Keith, spooning him and wrapping his arms around his stomach as he smiled and muttered out, “I can feel your stretch marks…”

     “That’s not a good thing,” Keith groaned, sniffling and brushing aside Lance’s hand in hopes that he would stop feeling the stretch marks from his pregnancy with the twins. 

Lance laughed under his breath and kissed Keith’s cheek, placing his hands on the stretch marks again despite Keith’s requests not to, “I love them… They remind me that you really did carry our two children that I love more than anything in the whole universe.”

Keith tried to pull Lance’s hands off of his stomach again, “Don’t touch my stomach.. I’m so bloated lately; it’s embarrassing.”

     “Bloated?” Lance asked, raising his head a bit. “Like… how you were with Juliet?”

Keith bit his lip and stared at the wall in front of him, “Maybe. I can’t tell for sure though. Nothing else has happened yet to indicate that I’m pregnant.”

     “No nausea?” Lance asked, sitting up so he could look over at Keith’s stomach. He pulled up the other boy’s shirt and saw how Keith was gaining just a little bit of fat to him, “You are definitely pregnant.”

     “Because I’m getting fat?” Keith almost squeaked out, eyes widening as he pulled his shirt down and curled up away from Lance, feeling self conscious. 

Tears started to fill Keith’s eyes as he sniffled and cried out, “The only excuse you can give yourself to explain me letting myself go is me being pregnant! Me being pregnant is the only way you can love me with this kind of body!”

     “What?” Lance asked, eyes widening at Keith’s mood swing. He then realized what was going on and laughed a little, kissing Keith’s cheek and saying, “Mood swings. That’s another indication that your pregnant.”

     “No, I’m mad!” Keith snapped, elbowing Lance in the ribs. 

Lance quickly got off the bed and walked into the bathroom, “Come here, Keith. I have a pregnancy test in here that I wanted you to take when we felt confident enought that you were pregnant, and I’m feeling pretty confident right now that you are. You want to find out?”

Keith sat up in bed, perking up at the thought of possibly finding out that he was pregnant. He sniffled and started to get off the bed, “And what if I’m not? What if I’m just being moody and I’m getting fat?”

     “Then I’ll still love you the same,” Lance chuckled, looking down at the new test in his hands. “But I have a feeling you aren’t fat and moody for nothing.”

Keith grumbled out a response and snatched the test from Lance’s hands when he walked into the bathroom. He walked past him to the toilet and sat down, “Get out. I don’t want to disturb your vision with my overweight presence.”

     “Keith,” Lance let out a light-hearted whine. 

     “Get out,” Keith mimicked Lance’s tone. 

Lance sighed and did as Keith requested, leaving him alone in the bathroom and closing the door to give him space. He patiently waited outside the door until the door to their room opened and Cora and Kashi walked in, rubbing their eyes tiredly. 

His eyes widened and he hurried over to them, “What are you two doing up?” He scooped them off the group and held them in his arms so they wouldn’t have to the chance to go to the restroom and find Keith peeing on a stick. That would be too much to try to explain to them, and Lance could tell Keith wasn’t in the mood for his kids walking in on him doing something so embarrassing. 

     “Kashi woke me up,” Cora whined, leaning her head on Lance’s chest. 

     “I didn’t!” Kashi fussed, swatting his hand at Cora’s face. 

Lance pulled them farther apart before Kashi could hit Cora, warning them in what he liked to call his ‘bad cop dad’ tone, “Kashi, don’t hit your sister. You aren’t allowed to hit people.”

     “Fine…” Kashi pouted, crossing his arms in a huff as he looked around the room. “Where’s daddy?”

Lance set them both down on the bed and looked towards the bathroom, “He is just in the bathroom. He should be out in a second.”

Kashi slid off the bed, holding onto his sister for a few seconds so he could slide close enough to the ground and hop off without having to fall at too much of a height. He then toddled over to the door and hit his palm against the door a few times, calling out to Keith, “Daddy? I wanna see you!”

As soon as he said that, Keith opened the door, expression cold and distant. Lance’s eyes immediately went down to Keith’s hand, checking for the pregnancy test until he saw that there was nothing there. He looked back up at Keith and tilted his head, “Did you do it?”

Keith’s lips started to tremble as tears filled his eyes. He walked past Kashi and towards Lance, not saying anything as he cried and fell limp onto Lance. Lance held Keith up in his arms, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He understood what this meant, “It’s ok… I shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up. We just need to try again, ok?”

     “Why is Daddy sad?” Cora asked, holding out her arms to be taken off the bed. Lance sighed and pet Keith’s hair, muttering out a soft, “He’s not having a good day. Can you do me a favor and go play with Allura and Coran with Kashi?”

     “Does Daddy wanna join?” Kashi asked, tugging at Keith’s pant leg. He didn’t want to leave Keith now that he was finally getting to see him tonight. 

Keith’s breath hitched as he started to cry again. Lance bit his lip and pulled himself away from Keith for a brief moment to pick Kashi up and kiss him on the cheek, “How about we play tomorrow? We are landing on a planet soon, so we can fun all day off the castle.”

The twins agreed to the idea, happy that they were going to get some fresh air outside of the castle for the first time in a while. They were rarely allowed onto planets due to Keith being so protective of them, but when Lance managed to convince Keith to let them visit planets with them, they had a blast. Once they were gone, Lance sighed and turned back to Keith who was now sitting on the floor with his back against the bed and his head in his hands. 

     “Do you want to ask Allura if there is anything that can maybe improve your chances of getting pregnant?” Lance asked, sitting down in front of Keith before holding his hand. 

Keith sniffled and shook his head though, “I think I was pregnant…”

     “Could the test be wrong? Do you want to try another one?”

Keith shook his head again, his face still hidden by his hanging hair, “I didn’t use the test.”

     “What?” Lance tilted his head. “Why are you crying?”

     “Look at the toilet,” Keith bit his lip, letting go of Lance’s hand to let him do what he asked. 

Lance was confused what Keith meant by ‘look at the toilet’. What was in there? What could he even worry about being in there? He stood up and walked over to the bathroom, peering over the sink counter to the toilet to see drops of blood scattered around the bowl of the toilet. There was no doubt about where the blood came from and why. That only made Lance’s heart sink though. 

He ran back over to Keith and hugged him, tears in his eyes, “This isn’t a miscarriage, ok? You are fine. That was just a little blood. You aren’t feeling pain anywhere are you?”

Keith sniffled and shook his head, “There’s none.. Which is why I don’t understand! Blood means I had a miscarriage! I’ve only ever bled from a miscarriage or just extra blood in my system.”

     “Could it be that?” Lance asked, his hands on Keith’s shoulders in a failing attempt to keep him calm. 

Keith shook his head, “We would’ve had to have had sex more recently than four days ago for this to be because of that,” he leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder and started crying again, “I hate this… I hate losing kids! I hate it!”

     “Shh…” Lance murmured, holding Keith as he cried. “You didn’t lose anyone. I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for this that isn’t a miscarriage. Let’s just get to bed, and you will feel better in the morning, ok? It will all be better…”

Keith nodded his head and got onto the bed, just wanting to fall asleep and escape the terrible emotions he was feeling right now. He curled up into himself as Lance brought the covers over him, quickly running across the room to turn out the bathroom lights and flush the toilet before going back to the bed to get in and hold Keith close. Keith cried for almost twenty minutes before finally drifting off to sleep followed soon after by Lance. This was an eerie reminder of what they were most afraid of when trying for a baby: losing a baby again. 

The next morning, Keith woke up stiff and scared to move in fear of finally feeling the miscarriage. He squeezed Lance’s hand to wake him up, “Lance.. P-Please check to see if there is more bleeding.”

     “More bleeding?” he muttered back, still half-asleep. His eyes widened when he remembered what happened last night though, “Do you feel blood down there?”

Keith was already starting to tear up again, “I don’t know… I’m too afraid to check for myself. If there is blood down there, I’m not going to be able to control myself.”

Lance sat up and rolled Keith onto his back, “I’ll check. Just close your eyes or look up at the ceiling, ok?”

     “Ok,” Keith nodded his head, his lips trembling as he tried with all his strength to stay calm and not cry. He pressed his arm over his eyes as Lance pulled the covers off of him and slowly started to slide his boxers off, spreading his legs to try to find blood. 

Lance only had to spread them a little bit before finding blood on Keith’s thighs. He looked around to see his boxers were stained with it too as well as the bed. This would be harder to excuse as something other than miscarriage now...

     “There is only dry blood,” Lance lied, getting up from the bed quickly. “Don’t look at it. I’ll get a washcloth and get it all off for you.”

As Lance went to the bathroom, Keith stared up at the ceiling, curiosity slowly taking him over. If there was only dried blood down there, why didn’t Lance what him to look at it? He was lying wasn’t he? Was it worse than he imagined? Keith slowly brought his hand down to his groin and felt a warm liquid on his fingers. He brought his hand up to see dark blood on his fingers. This was definitely the result of a miscarriage.

When Lance came back, he saw the blood on Keith’s hand and his open eyes filled with tears. He lowered the washcloth to his side and muttered out, “I told you not to look…”

     “It’s a miscarriage,” Keith bit his lip. “I’m going to be bleeding all day, so there’s no point in hiding it from me.”

     “Keith…” Lance’s lip trembled and he teared up. He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to Keith, hugging him as he cried out, “What do you think happened? There were no dangers! I thought I could protect you and the new baby easily, but then this happens, and it doesn’t make sense!”

Keith wrapped his arms around Lance and rubbed his back absent-mindedly, “It didn’t make sense when we lost the others, too… It never will make sense.”

Keith got up to take a shower while Lance took the sheet off the bed and threw them down the laundry chute. Keith walked out again in his pjs, not having the energy to dress in day clothes today. He threw his bloodied boxers down the laundry chute and walked past Lance, muttering out, “I put a bunch of toilet paper in my underwear so the others won’t see what is going on. Can you keep this a secret too?”

     “Yeah,” Lance nodded his head, looking at the ground. 

Keith sighed and held his hand, giving an assuring but still fake smile as he said, “Maybe we won’t be a big happy family, but we can still be a happy family, right? I’m sure Allura or Shiro already have Kashi and Cora at the table eating breakfast right now. Let’s join them.”

They made their way to the dining room where the whole team was sitting down already eating their food. Shiro was spoon feeding Kashi while Allura was spoon feeding Cora when Keith and Lance walked in, gaining the attention of everyone at the table. Keith averted his eyes from Shiro and made his way to his seat, trying to smile as he muttered out, “Thanks for waking the twins up. How late did they stay up last night?”

     “They fell asleep just a few minutes after we started playing, so they weren’t trouble at all,” Allura smiled, leaning forward a bit. “Are you ok?”

     “Why wouldn’t I be?” Keith asked, looking to Lance for some help. 

Lance’s eyes widened and he sat down, helping Keith out by putting on a smile and saying in as cheerful of a tone as he could manage, “Yeah, he is probably just tired cause we were up all night doing… well things we shouldn't say in front of the twins.”

     “I don’t wanna hear it!” Shiro quickly cut him off, putting his arms up. “Hunk and Shay already told us the news of them expecting this morning, and I’m already scarred thinking that Hunk actually isn’t as innocent as we all thought!”

     “Wait, Shay, you’re pregnant?” Lance felt his stomach turn with what he couldn’t tell was either jealousy or sadness. 

Shay nodded her head, blushing and placing her hand on her stomach, “We found out last week. We were going to keep it a secret for just a little while longer, but… Hunk couldn’t contain his excitement anymore this morning.”

     “Hey, I was just subtly asking Coran for advice, and he was the one that blurted it out to everyone,” Hunk whined, glaring at Coran though he didn’t mean any ill will by it. 

Coran put his hands up and sighed, “Anyone could tell what was really going on, but you should be happy! There is no reason to hide...pregnancies…” he looked to Keith. “As proud parents of two toddlers, you two should be the ones to give Hunk advice anyways! After we visit the planet of Juliet and Steven, we can-!”

He stopped when Lance put his hand up and gave Coran and a look that gestured towards Keith who had his head in his hands. Coran sighed and gave an apologetic smile, “So Kashi and Cora… Are you excited to take a field trip out of the castle today?”

The two toddlers nodded their heads and let out cheers that caused the whole table to gush at their cuteness. Even Lance could feel himself loosening up a bit even after what happened this morning. Still though, Keith couldn’t focus on anything except for what was going on inside of him. A baby was dying inside of him at this very moment. Maybe it was already dead and he was just dealing with the after effects, but the fact that he added another baby to his personal graveyard filled with tiny coffins made him sick. How could he go about normal life?

He slammed his fists on the table, tears falling down his face as he lifted up his head to everyone around him, staring at him. He clenched his teeth and stood up, “What the fuck did I do to deserve this?!”

     “Keith, baby, don’t cuss in front of the kids,” Lance reprimanded, getting up and going after Keith before he could walk out of the room. He grabbed Keith’s wrist and spun him around to whisper to him, “What happened to keeping everything a secret? It’s going to be pretty obvious if you do stuff like this!”

     “What do you expect me to do?” Keith whispered back, “Hunk and Shay are all happy expecting their baby while I’m over here currently losing one! How am I supposed to keep it hidden?”

Lance looked over at the others that were staring at them, trying their best to listen in on Keith and Lance’s conversation though Shiro was trying his best to make it impossible to hear over his demands for them to stay in their own business. Lance sighed and placed his hands on Keith’s waist, “That was us once, remember? We were excited for a baby three times now, and though two of them didn’t end up how we hoped, one ended up being amazing, and we still have those kids today! Isn’t that great?”

     “I want more,” Keith sniffled, letting his head fall onto Lance’s shoulder. “I’ll always want more….”

     “I’ll give you more,” Lance answered, wrapping his arms tightly around Keith. “But in the meantime, let’s be thankful for what we could create and keep despite the war that was going on. Can you do that?”

Keith wiped his tears onto Lance’s shirt, sniffling and nodding his head slowly, “I can… I’m sorry.”

     “Daddy why are you crying again?” Kashi asked, reaching his hands up in a demand to be taken out of his booster seat. 

Shiro lifted him up and set him on the ground, not wanting him to throw a fit at the table. Kashi toddled over to Keith and tugged on his pants, “Daddy there’s red!”

     “Kashi go back to the table, please,” Lance commanded, trying desperately to keep Keith calm in his fragile state. 

     “But daddy is bleeding!” Kashi argued, causing Lance’s eyes to widen. 

He looked down at Keith’s pants to see he bled through the toilet paper, his underwear, and now his pajamas. Lance clenched his teeth and look back at the table whose eyes were all looking down at the blood stain slowly growing on Keith’s pants. Keith started crying again, so Lance held him close, looking to Allura and then Coran, “Can we talk to you both for a moment in private?”

Lance carried Kashi back to his booster seat at the table and walked out of the room with Keith in his arms and Coran and Allura following close behind. Once they got into the living room area, Allura finally asked Lance, “What is going on? Why is Keith bleeding?”

     “You didn’t figure that out already?” Lance asked, looking down at Keith’s pants again.

Coran tilted his head and took a moment to piece everything that had happened this morning together. His eyes widened and he then exclaimed in a voice full of pity, “You two lost a baby, didn’t you?”

Lance winced at the sound of that being said out loud. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, nodding his head slowly before saying, “We were going to hide it because we found out about it as soon as the miscarriage happened, but then Hunk and Shay announced their pregnancy and Keith…. Well it’s hard to take news like that well at a time like this, you know?”

     “I understand perfectly well,” Coran sighed, placing a wary hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Keith do you mind if we take a look at you and try to find the cause for the miscarriage? Maybe once we do that, we can find a way to avoid it completely and secure a safe pregnancy for the next time you try.”

Keith shook his head, “I don’t want to try again… I’ll find out what happened this time, but I will definitely not ever try again!”

Lance bit his lip, hoping that Keith was only saying that out of a moment of anger and didn’t actually mean it. He wanted to try again. He wanted them to have a baby again. He would have offered to carry the baby a long time ago too if he was able to get pregnant. Sadly he wasn’t, but he still was willing to do anything to get them another baby.

They went to the clinic and laid Keith out on the bed, taking off his pants and underwear since they were covered in blood anyways. Keith covered his stomach with his arms, feeling uncomfortable with the exposure of his hips and down. He wanted nothing more than to crawl up in bed and forget about everything that was going on right now, but he sucked it up in order for Lance to feel closure in his own way by finding out what happened. 

Lance helped Coran clean up the leftover blood on his skin before holding Keith’s hands as Coran started to perform tests on Keith to find out what happened. Lance sat down and relaxed his head on Keith’s shoulder, muttering out a quiet, “How are you feeling?”

     “Fine,” Keith lied, looking at his still pudgy stomach in front of him. “At least I don’t have to push this one out of me.”

     “You might actually,” Coran muttered out, looking at Altean words Keith couldn’t understand that were across his screen. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he felt his heart skip a beat, “It had already grown that much? How far along was I? We made sure not to get pregnant while in battle with Zarkon, so there is no way I was pregnant for longer than a month and a half.”

Coran shook his head and brushed his fingers across his mustache, looking from the screen to Keith’s bloody thighs before his eyes widened and he nodded his head, “Ah… You said you didn’t feel any pain, right?”

     “Yes, but there is too much blood for this not to be a miscarriage. This isn’t just extra blood flow,” Keith answered, secretly hoping that there was a chance that this really was extra blood flow instead of miscarriage. 

Coran shook his head again though, “This isn’t extra blood flow.”

     “Then what is it?” Lance asked, eyes wide in anticipation. “How did the baby die?”

     “That’s the thing,” Coran replied, pressing his hand lightly to Keith’s stomach, “My tests say the baby isn’t dead. It is very much alive, but this may just be blood caused from implantation or a warning of a miscarriage. I’m glad we checked now though, because this can be an easy fix! Good thing we don’t have a war to worry about anymore, because you aren’t allowed to go on anymore missions.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he felt his stomach, “So a baby is still in there?”

     “Just one this time, yes,” Coran smiled, looking to Lance. “Make sure Keith feels no stress, and I am sorry to tell you this, but you two are not allowed to perform intercourse until the threat of the miscarriage goes away.”

Coran expected Lance to be disappointed or make a remark on how much he was going to hate not having sex with Keith, but Lance only nodded his head in understanding and let out a sigh of relief, “Ok, no sex, no stress… anything else?”

     “Keith took on some damage from his last two miscarriages and the birth of the twins. We put him in the pod after that, but it seems like there were some lasting effects the pod couldn’t fix. While you are visiting Steven and Juliet, I will visit one of the doctors on the planet to see if they have anything to reduce the risk of the baby being affected negatively by this.”

     “Thanks Coran,” Lance smiled, holding Keith’s hand tightly. “You hear that? Everything is fine. Isn’t it great that the only thing we need to worry about this pregnancy is not having sex and not being stressed?”

     “Is that great?” Keith asked, knowing that Lance was only trying to make him feel better, though it was going to take a lot more than words to take him off edge. Keith sighed though and nodded his head, “That is very good…”

Lance and Keith weren’t in the best of moods even after finding out that they still had the baby because they felt like the slightest move would cause it to die. They still decided to visit Juliet and Steven’s graves though with Kashi and Cora, wanting to see their two kids before they left for Earth. Keith also knew that he would be able to rest better if he got to say goodbye to Juliet and Steven first. 

     “You know we aren’t going to see them for a while once we get back to Earth, right?” Keith muttered out, looking down at the two tombstones that marked the date Juliet died with no birthday next to it and the date Steven died that was the same as his birth date. It was sad to see that neither of them lasted longer than a day, but Keith felt better when he looked down at the two toddlers hugging his and Lance’s legs. They got to live. They were something to keep him happy when staring at what made him sad. 

Lance tilted his head, “We can visit them in the summers when the kids are out of school. Speaking of school, should we just homeschool them or should we put them with other kids?”

     “Our kids mixing with the normal kids?” Keith cringed a bit, “Cora might love to meet other kids her age, but Kashi will hate it. Maybe Cora can go and if Kashi likes it, he can stay in preschool, but if he doesn’t, we can keep him at home.”

Lance smiled and leaned down to Keith’s stomach, lifting up his shirt and kissing his skin, “What do you think this little one would want?”

Keith blushed and yanked his shirt down, “Please, Lance, my pregnancy belly looks like I just ate a lot for dinner. Wait until I grow bigger before you kiss my stomach in public.”

Kashi gave Lance a confused stare, holding on to Keith’s leg as he asked Lance, “Why you kiss daddy’s tummy?”

     “I wanna kiss daddy’s tummy too!” Cora declared, jumping up and down as she tried to reach Keith’s stomach. “I wanna be like papa!”

Lance laughed and picked Cora up, “You want to send kisses to your little brother or sister?”

     “Kashi?” Cora looked to Kashi. “I don’t wanna kiss Kashi.”

Kashi stuck his tongue out at Cora, “That’s gross!”

Lance laughed, “Settle down now you two. I mean the baby sibling you two have that is inside of daddy’s stomach right now. That is the one I was sending kisses to.”

     “Daddy ate a baby?” Cora asked, looking to Keith with a glare. “That’s killing!”

Keith glanced at Lance with a death stare and Lance quickly backtracked what Cora said, “No, no, the baby is growing inside of him. Daddy used magic to create a new baby inside of him so you two could have someone to play with when it is big enough to come out.”

Kashi and Cora’s eyes widened and they stared at Keith for a solid minute before Kashi reached up for Keith to hold him, whining out, “I wanna kiss!”

Keith laughed and looked to Lance to pick him up, too afraid to pick Kashi up in fear it would be too much for his body and the baby to handle. Lance did exactly what was needed of him and picked Kashi up, holding him in front of Keith’s stomach so he could kiss it. Kashi placed a light kiss on the outside of Keith’s shirt, patting his tummy once and muttering out, “I love daddy’s magic baby.”

Lance grinned and looked to Keith, “Looks like Kashi is already best friends with the new baby,” he looked down at Cora who seemed disinterested, taking a nap on his chest. He shrugged and kept smiling, “We’ll make one that Cora likes later. Don’t worry.”

Keith laughed and wrapped his arm around Lance, giving him a half hug since he didn’t want the pressure of a full hug on his stomach. He kissed Lance’s cheek, “She can pick from the five more we have after this one.”

They both gave Steven and Juliet’s graves once last look before making their way back to the castle, Keith and the kids already exhausted from their day out. 

That night, Coran gave Keith medicine to make sure his pregnancy was a safe one. Though the medicine made Keith’s stomach turn with nausea, he took it with no complaints and went to bed early, wanting to rest to make sure the baby was safe and the bleeding stopped. Lance stayed up with the twins for a few more hours before finally tucking them into bed and joining Keith, being extra careful with how he held Keith now that there was something so fragile inside of him. 

As the weeks went by, the threat of a miscarriage went away. The baby was perfectly healthy and the bleeding had stopped. Two months went by and Keith’s stomach had grown to the size he had been when he was pregnant with Juliet. He and Shay compared their stomachs with each other, both having what had been confirmed as a boy in them. 

By the time they had gotten to Earth, it seemed like every couple in the castle was expecting. Keith and Lance were going to be having a baby boy very soon, Hunk and Shay were also going to be expecting a boy as well though Shay’s pregnancy was going to last eleven months which was normal for her species, and even Allura was pregnant now with Shiro’s baby which surprised everyone. Their pregnancy wasn’t planned and no one even knew that they had a thing besides Shiro’s crush on Allura, but they seemed happy together so no one questioned it. 

They landed out in the desert near the Garrison, everyone packed and ready to finally go home. Keith and Lance were going to stay on earth as well as Pidge, Matt, and their father, but Shiro, Hunk, and Shay were only going to visit earth before going back out to Space. Hunk was fine staying in space with Shay, because he knew earth would be hard to deal with now after everything that happened. Earth was going to be hard for everyone to deal with after the war with Zarkon, but some missed their families too much and other needed to be with the ones that missed their families. 

Hunk went to visit his family and let them meet Shay while Pidge, Matt, and their father went home to Mrs. Holt, and Shiro took Allura and Coran around the city next to the Garrison to show them around earth while Keith and Lance went to see Lance’s family. 

They walked up the steps to Lance’s family home, the sound of his family talking up a storm inside at the dinner table. Lance grinned, his hands shaking from excitement. He could barely contain himself. He held Cora in one arm and held Kashi’s hand with the other, turning to Keith with a grin, “They are going to love you. I just.. I’m so excited to see them! It’s been so long!”

Keith had his hand over his stomach, his hands also shaking but from anxiety rushing through his veins. He bit his lip and stepped back a bit, “Maybe you should talk to them and tell them everything that happened before introducing me to them. They won’t understand me. They are going to be confused why you have two kids and why you are bringing home a fat guy that is afraid to let people touch his stomach.”

     “Oh crap, that might actually be really weird to explain to them,” Lance muttered, looking down at Kashi. He then shrugged and grinned, “That’s why I need you and the kids here with me so they don’t think I am crazy when I am explaining everything to them!”

Keith rolled his eyes and started to turn around, “I’m coming back when they are prepared for this.”

Lance quickly grabbed his shoulders before he could fully turn around, smiling and urging him towards the door, “You are going to be fine! Just be yourself and watch the kids while I greet my family.”

Before Keith could argue further with Lance, Lance opened up the door to the house without knocking and called out to his family, “ ¡Mamá, papá, estoy en casa!” 

The sound of Lance speaking Spanish made Keith feel turned on, and his raging hormones from pregnancy weren’t helping at all. He walked in as a silence consumed the once lively sounding house. He turned to Lance and whispered, “You got the correct house, right?”

     “This house has been in my family for generations, there is no way they aren’t here,” Lance muttered back, calling out to the house again. “¡Es Lance! Regresé..” 

Suddenly, a shuffling of feet came into the front room, and Lance’s mom was staring at him with wide eyes filled with tears. When she saw him, she brought her hands up to her mouth and stepped back in disbelief before shouting out to what Keith could only guess was the rest of his family, “¡Es verdad! ¡Realmente es Lance!” 

More people came running into the front room to see Lance finally coming back home after he had been presumed dead for so long. Lance was suddenly wrapped up in a group hug by everyone that seemed to be his family. Even little kids that were too young to have even known him joined the group hug for reasons Keith couldn’t wrap his head around. He just awkwardly stood by the door holding Kashi’s hand with one hand and Cora’s with the other. 

Cora looked up at him and asked, “Why do the aliens on this planet know papa?”

     “This planet is his home,” Keith muttered out to her, his eyes fixed on the group hug he knew he would never be a part of. “Those people hugging papa are his family.”

     “Can we say hi?” Cora asked, shaking his arm for permission to let go. 

He shook his head though, “Let him have his moment. He’ll call us over.”

After what was probably ten minutes but felt like a whole hour to Keith, Lance finally called attention to him and the kids. He stepped back from his family or group of what Keith counted as eleven people and spoke in English, “You guys have no idea what kind of crazy things I’ve done these past few years. You probably won’t even believe half of the stuff I tell you! How many years has it been?”

     “Almost eight years,” a man who was probably Lance’s dad muttered out, looking down. “Where have you been all this time? We thought you were dead!”

Lance felt his heart skip a beat when he realized how long he had been away. The first year he was gone, it felt like a decade, but as time passed, the years became a blur and he had no idea he had been gone so long. He turned to Keith and sighed, “Wow… So much has happened in eight years… I’ll tell you all later where we have been, but first I want to introduce you to my husband and kids. Keith, my family doesn’t bite, you can come closer.”

Lance was trying to make the situation more comfortable for Keith, but Keith only felt more embarrassed by the reassurance. He looked down and stepped forward, still holding Kashi and Cora’s hands. He could feel Lance’s family’s stares directed at him and his stomach. He was so used to traveling places where he didn’t care about what other people thought because male pregnancies were a well-known thing throughout space, but on earth, humans knew nothing. They probably thought he was a freak.

     “Nice to meet you all,” Keith muttered out, letting go of Cora’s hand to lift his arm up in a wave. 

Lance smiled and wrapped his arm around Keith, “This is Keith. Mama, I complained about him to you when I first went to the Garrison, but I found out he was amazing when we went to space and had to be a team to defeat a guy who was trying to take over space! We got married and… well fast forward through a lot of stuff, we had Cora and Kashi three years ago and we have another little one on the way.”

Silence filled the room. Keith sighed and rolled his eyes, nudging Lance lightly in the ribs, “Way to ease them into it.”

     “Mama, Lance went crazy,” a girl muttered, staring at him with wide eyes. 

Lance shook his head, “This is all true! Uh… crap we should have brought Shiro along to prove it all with his Galra hand. Or Allura to use magic or something. Oh! Hunk was there too! He is visiting his family right now. His girlfriend is also pregnant, but they will believe him easily because she is very visibly an alien, but-! Oh! Keith, activate your Galra form!”

     “Lance…” Keith sighed, holding his stomach in his hands. “That isn’t good for the pregnancy.”

     “They won’t believe us otherwise,” Lance tried, tilting his head in a pleading way. 

Keith gave in easily, “I guess it won’t hurt if I do it for one second… No one freak out. Kashi doesn’t like loud noises.”

Everyone stared at him expectantly. 

He sighed and closed his eyes, thinking about only turning his face into his Galra form so he didn’t hurt the baby. If he switched the form of his stomach as well, he would definitely bring harm to the baby. Keith slowly felt his skin changing, a pain finding its way under his skin as he started revealing his Galra identity. As soon as the change started to reach his stomach, Keith quickly opened his eyes and changed back into his human form, immediately opening his eyes to look at the surprised looks on everyone’s faces. 

“I’m an alien,” Keith explained. “That’s how I am able to get pregnant, because the males of my species are capable of doing such things. I grew up on Earth thinking I was a human though, so don’t worry.”

Everyone still had wide eyes. It was Lance’s mom that spoke up first, stepping out in front of everyone with a glare at Keith. Keith thought that she was going to slap him or even punch him in the stomach which was the worse of the two worries, but instead, she reached out her hand to touch his stomach, “Does the baby kick a lot?”

Keith tilted his head in confusion. Wasn’t she just about to hit him? Was this a test to see if there really was something in there? Keith gave her a smile anyway and nodded his head, “Yeah, he kicks a lot. I feel him kicking right…” he moved her hand to the left side of his stomach. “Here. He is kicking right here.”

Her eyes widened and she turned to the rest of Lance’s family, “There is something kicking in there!”

     “A baby,” Lance sighed, raising an eyebrow as he looked to Keith with a smile. 

The rest of Lance’s family gathered around Keith and felt his stomach, trying to feel for the kicks that proved Lance’s story of a male actually being pregnant. It was strange how the baby kicking was more proof of this than Keith shifting into his Galra form, but Lance was just happy that the news of everything that happened was going by so smoothly now. Kashi and Cora walked up to Keith and reached their arms up to Keith, Kashi whining out to Keith, “Let me feel him! I wanna feel him!”

     “Oh and who is this?” Lance’s mom asked, bending down to take a closer look at the twins. She turned to Lance, “They look so much like you! What are their names again?”

     “Kashi is the boy and Cora is the girl,” Lance replied. 

     “You named one of your kids after me?” Lance’s sister Cora asked, as she picked Cora up without asking. Cora started crying, so she quickly put her down, awkwardly stepping back as she called out to Lance’s other sister, “Juliet! He named one of his kids after me and not you! I always knew I was the favorite sister!”

Lance bit his lip and look over at Keith who seemed too busy to have heard her use that name. He was lucky there was no one named Steven in the house to worry about, but he was going to have to talk to his family about what happened, and how they needed to be careful around Keith when talking about certain things. 

Juliet stomped over to him, hugging him tightly and whining out, “Why didn’t you name the girl after me? Juliet is a much better name!”

Lance wrapped his arms around Juliet and sighed, “I did name one of my daughters after you.”

     “Wait what? You have more?” Juliet looked around. “Where? You guys were busy these past few years, weren’t ya! Is she older?”

Lance looked over to Keith as he muttered out quietly to his sisters, “Juliet was our daughter and the first kid we ever had… she died before she was born though. We also had a son right after her, but he died as well soon after being born.”

     “Oh… Lance…. I’m so sorry,” Cora looked down and then over to Keith. “Was it a stillbirth?”

Lance shook his head, “There are bad people in space. They wanted Keith to suffer, so they killed Juliet a week before she was due and then killed Steven soon after he was born. Cora and Kashi wouldn’t have made it either if we didn’t have unexpected help at the time… I’ll tell mama and papa about this later, but for now let’s celebrate being back on Earth!” he walked over to Keith and hugged him, “We are finally home!”

Lance’s family pulled up four extra chairs to the dining room table and sat Lance and Keith next to each other and Cora and Kashi next to Lance’s niece and nephew. Keith kept a close watch on the twins throughout dinner, still enjoying talking with Lance’s family and trading stories with them about the seven years they had been gone. 

After dinner, Lance’s parents predictably insisted on Keith and Lance staying in Lance’s old room while Kashi and Cora stayed in the guest room.  At around midnight, Lance finally broke away from his family to go to bed, waking up Keith who had fallen asleep on the couch after feeling dizzy. Lance offered to take him to Coran to make sure he was fine, but Keith felt confident enough that the dizziness was nothing and a nap would fix everything.  Lance picked him up and carried him bridal style up the stairs to his room, kicking the door open and looking around his room that looked the same as when he left it. He laid Keith down on his bed carefully and looked at all of the posters on the wall, saying out in amazement, “They kept my room the same! This is so blast from the past-y!"

     “Nostalgic?” Keith corrected him in a tired sigh, laying on the bed with his knees curled up as far as they could go to his stomach. 

Lance sighed and shut the door to his room, “Fancy words, Mr. Fancy-pants,” he grinned and hopped on to the bed, making sure to be careful of Keith. “I’m so happy to be back home! My mom is gonna make churros tomorrow if you want. I miss churros. Oh, and let’s invite the rest of the team over for dinner tomorrow! Let’s all have churros to celebrate being back!”

Keith nodded his head and shut his eyes tightly, “Lance…” he pressed his hands against his stomach, rubbing it lightly as he bit his lip. He shuddered at a feeling of pain that coursed through his body. “Lance, I don’t feel the baby kicking.”

Lance felt his heart drop. 

     “Keith, you are probably just feeling anxious right now. This happened last week, remember?” Lance brought his hand up to Keith’s stomach and felt around for his baby’s kicks. “Come on, little guy, stop giving us a heart attack.”

     “Ah!” Keith cried out, his hands trembling as he curled up tighter into a ball. 

He rolled over onto his stomach and lifted himself up so there wasn’t any pressure on it. He winced lightly in pain for a few seconds before letting out a scream that could be heard throughout the entire house. His eyes widened and he started sobbing, muttering out to Lance in exasperated coughs and cries, “I-I think I'm going into labor! It's too early for this! What is going on!?”

Lance quickly forced Keith off the bed, starting to help him towards the door as he quickly said, “We are going back to the castle. Don’t let your body do anything until-!”

Keith interrupted him with an outcry of pain once more. Keith jerked back away from Lance, stumbling a bit as he started to take off his pants and boxers. Keith bent over and looked between his legs to see if his greatest fear was coming to life. Before Lance could see if there was blood or not, Keith fell to the floor again and punched his fists to the ground, “No, no, no!”

Lance got down on the ground too, making Keith sit up so he could see… blood. Lots of blood between his thighs. Keith was sobbing as he grabbed onto Lance and yelled out, “What even happened?! What did we do?! It was alive just a few hours ago!”

     “It’s still alive,” Lance tried to assure himself and Keith. “This is a false alarm. We just need to go to the castle and have Coran check it out, and everything will be fine, Ok? You need to get up.”

Keith nodded his head and tried to get up, only crying out in pain and falling to the ground again as soon as he tried to move. He held his stomach and yelled out in pain, “It hurts! He’s coming right now!”

     “I’m carrying you back to the castle,” Lance declared, about to pick Keith up until Keith stood up and liquid splattered onto the floor. Keith bit his lip and fell over onto Lance, holding onto his shoulders tightly as he sobbed and muttered out, “He’s not going to be alive…”

Lance’s eyes widened and he started to try to pick Keith up again despite Keith’s struggles to stay on the ground. Suddenly, the door opened and Lance’s mom and dad came running in, his mother asking in a worried tone, “Lance, what is going on?”

Her eyes found Keith on the ground, a pool of blood and other fluids mixed around him. Lance turned to her with tears in his eyes, “We-We might be having a miscarriage. I need to bring him back to the ship! There m-might be a chance if we can get to them in time and then-!”

Keith cried out again in pain, grabbing on to Lance’s shirt as he pressed himself close to him and yelled, “We won’t make it in time! I just need to push it out now, so get in front of me and help me!”

    “Should I call a doctor?” Lance’s dad asked, starting to take out his phone until Lance quickly stopped him, “Call Hunk’s family. Tell them that they need to tell Hunk to bring Coran and Allura over here. Can you do that?” he turned to Keith, “Keith don’t push. Help will come and the baby will be safe.”

Minutes passed and soon a whole hour passed before team Voltron was in Lance’s bedroom and they were helping Keith give birth to his baby since they found there was nothing else they could do. Shiro instructed Shay and Allura to go back to the ship with Hunk just in case there was something about earth that affected the pregnancy. 

Another hour later and the baby was finally out, Keith’s screams finally ceasing. His breaths were in low pants as he stared at Coran with pleading eyes, “Please…. Please tell me the baby is alive.”

Coran looked down at the small baby in his arm, a sorrowful expression on his face as he stared down at it. Lance’s mother looked over at the baby and covered her mouth, turning her body into Lance’s father. Keith could tell from the expressions of everyone around him that the baby was dead. He shut his eyes and more tears began to fall as he laid his head back and let out a screaming sob. 

Lance held him in his arms and cried as well, refusing to look at the lifeless baby in fear that it would make this all too real. Keith felt the same, holding onto Lance as he screamed at Coran, “Take it away! I don’t want to see it, just take it away!”

     “Keith, you should hold it just for a moment,” Shiro tried, taking the baby from Coran’s arms to hand to Keith. 

Keith shut his eyes and turned up his nose, muffled cries escaping from his closed lips, “I want it to be alive… Make it alive!”

     “Lance, take the baby,” Shiro urged the baby into his arms, wanting at least Lance to see the baby. Lance took it reluctantly, staring at what was supposed to be his son in his arms. He sniffled and muttered out, “What caused this…”

Coran shook his head, looking down, “I’m afraid I have no answer to that. We could run some tests and-!”

     “No,” Keith demanded, sniffling and looking over at the baby in Lance’s arms. It didn’t look like either of them because it was too young to show any prominent features and it was also still covered in blood. He bit his lip and looked to Coran with a glare, “No more tests. I’m done trying.”

     “Keith…” Shiro tried again, but Keith pushed him away before weakly trying to get up. He used the support of Lance’s bed behind him to help himself up, pulling a blanket off the bed right after to cover up his groin area. 

The room was crowded with Lance’s whole family staring at him. Keith felt like a wild animal in a cage with them looking at him like he was going to attack them at any second. He glared at Lance as he stumbled over to the bathroom, locking the door behind him before anyone could stop him. Now in seclusion, he started crying again, more silently this time since he knew everyone was listening outside. He rested his head on the sink and sat on the toilet so the blood still coming out wouldn’t get anywhere. 

The baby was too small to cause any real damage to him, so he would be fine without any medical attention. He didn’t care if he needed it anyways though. He felt like dying. He wanted to die. His point of living was becoming abstract now that he was being reminded of his inability to be able to carry children without them dying. What was he good for now with the war over and he had another failure to give birth to anything alive? He had a purpose when he was pregnant, and he couldn't even do that anymore and succeed. He was worthless. No, he was worse than worthless. He was a killer. All he did was get his own kids killed before they even had a chance to live, and he was tired of it. 

Even though the war with Zarkon was over, something new was raging on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for the next chapters!   
> I changed the amount of chapters again?   
> Whoops. Sorry guys, but I wanted to dabble in this fic a little longer, so the chapters will be going to 10! Thank you so much for all your comments and support and they really do mean a lot to me - hince me making this fic longer. Sorry for this chapter being so late, but I needed to plan out the next five chapters and make sure this fic wasn't going to go down hill as soon as I made it longer. I am excited for the next four chapters after this though, and I hope you enjoy it too!  
> Keep the comments up! I love you guys.


	7. No Child

No Child

Weeks had passed. Long weeks that felt like years had passed until now. Shiro, Allura, Cora, Hunk, and Shay were  gone along with the castle. They said they would come back in the next summer, but Lance wasn’t so sure that that was a good idea. He knew nothing would end well with Keith seeing either Allura and Shay being pregnant or with a baby.

Lance was back to as much of his normal self as he could be, spending time with his family and friends from before Voltron and showing the kids around the city and the town of where they now lived. Lance kept the kids from Keith, not wanting them to say anything that would upset him. Kashi missed Keith and begged to see him every day, but Lance knew this was better than Keith snapping at Kashi and causing the little boy to cry.

Keith never left his bed in Lance’s room. He would come down stairs rarely only when no one was around for food and water that Lance left out, but there was nothing else he felt like doing besides holing himself up in his room and sleeping.

     “Keith… It’s been weeks, you should go outside,” Lance tried, sitting on the side of the bed and staring down at the lump of Keith’s body under his covers. He placed his hand on what he was guessing was Keith’s leg and continued to speak in a cautious tone, “It’s raining for the first time since we’ve been back today. The kids are excited to go outside and play in it. Do you want to be with us?”

There was no answer.

Lance looked down at his knees, biting his lip as he muttered out, “How long do you think this is going to last? The kids miss you, Kashi really misses you, I…. I really miss you, Keith.”

Lance sat there in silence, receiving no answer or any kind of movement from Keith to show some understanding of his words. This was how it had been for the past few weeks besides the occasional moment at night when Keith curled up into Lance’s chest and cried until he fell asleep again.

He patted the blanket on the bed next to him, frowning and thinking about what Keith was going to be like in a few more weeks. Was he going to be the same? Was he going to be better? Was he going to be worse? What if he never got better? What if years passed by and Keith still didn’t talk to him? What was he going to do if Keith stayed in bed depressed forever and he had to take care of the twins all alone? What were they going to do without Keith as their dad?

Before his thoughts could make him even more depressed than he was already hiding, Lance stood up and walked out of the room, having a promise to keep with the twins to play with them outside.

His family was out of the house now, all of them having their own lives they had to live. Lance would need a job soon too just to occupy his time and take away his boredom. Allura gave him a valuable piece of metal that was worth enough to leave him set financially for life as a thank you for being in the war, but he still needed something to do besides stay in the house and take care of the kids.  It would be easier to stay in the house all day if he had someone above the age of three to talk to, but the only person his age was too sad to talk. He couldn’t blame him though.

Lance made sure the kids were dressed in rain coats his sister bought them before walking them outside to play in the puddles.

     “Is daddy going to play with us today?” Kashi asked, looking up at the sky as a raindrop fell on his nose. He scrunched up his nose and lifted his hand up to catch more raindrops sprinkling from the sky.

     “Not today, sweetie,” Lance sighed, bringing them out to the cul de sac area in front of his house. He looked around for a few seconds before finding a safe sized puddle for Kashi and Cora to splash in.

He brought them over to the puddle and put his hand in the water, “Look at this puddle! It’s like a tiny pool that you guys can splash in if you want to.”

Kashi seemed nervous about the strange puddle at first, but Cora jumped in without hesitation, splashing the rain water onto Kashi and Lance. Kashi splashed into the puddle as well once he saw that Cora didn’t die from jumping in. He then laughed and scooped up some water, throwing it at Lance’s face as he giggled, “It’s water!”

     “It is,” Lance grinned, picking Kashi up and spinning him around. “And wait until it starts to storm! Even more water and cool sounds will happen soon if you want to stay out here for it!”

     “I do, I do!” Cora sang out, jumping up and down so Lance could pick her up too.

Lance laughed and set Kashi down, picking Cora up and spinning her around, “Is my little princess gonna be the next blue paladin?”

     “Yes!” Cora declared, pumping her fists in the air. “I wanna save the world!”

     “Me too!” Kashi laughed, jumping into the puddle again.

This moment was something that took Lance’s mind off of everything that was happening right now. Playing with his kids in the rain was something he always dreamed up as the perfect life before he got involved with Voltron. He was living his dream… dancing in the rain, spinning Cora around in the air, and singing songs at the top of his lungs with Kashi. He was happy again for this moment.

Lightning flashed through the sky, decorating the dark clouds above with sharp streaks of yellow that reached down to the earth. Lance looked up with a grin and waited a few seconds before thunder clapped through the sky with a low rumble accompanying it. He held on closely to Cora though she only gasped out of surprise and looked up at the sky in awe. Lance could feel her heart beating fast, following the same pace as his as it always did.  He looked over at Kashi to see if he was having a good time as well, but he only found the toddler standing up straight as a board, his whole body shaking as he stared up at the sky in fear. Lance laughed a little and patted Kashi’s back, assuring him, “The thunder won’t hurt you Kashi. Thunder is only a sound!”

Tears fell from Kashi’s eyes and he started to cry, sounds coming out of him that were just sniffles and murmurs at first until he was letting out full blown wails. How could Lance have forgotten that Kashi was afraid of loud noises? Only Keith seemed to remember that, but Keith wasn’t here right now to remind him.

Another sound of thunder boomed through the sky. It was getting louder now which meant the storm was getting closer. Kashi fell to the ground, shaking and crying as Lance picked him up off the pavement and ran for the house. Even if both kids were fine with the sound of the storm, it wasn’t safe to be outside anymore. He had to get them inside now and calm Kashi down before his tantrum got worse.  He shut the door to the house and hurried Kashi over to the living room couch, shushing him and muttering out reassuring phrases over and over again though nothing was calming the boy down. Kashi was shaking uncontrollably, his heart racing and his breath heavy and fast as he cried. Thunder roared again, suddenly followed by the sounds of someone running down the stairs.

Lance turned around to see Keith in the living room now with them, his eyes wide with a glare in Lance’s direction as he yelled, “What are you doing? Why is he crying?!”

     “I took him outside, and I forgot loud noises scared him,” Lance answered, too worried about Kashi’s state to be shocked that Keith was speaking in full sentences to him now.

     “You forgot?!” Keith shouted, hurrying over to the couch and pushing Lance away from Kashi. “He’s having a panic attack now because of you!”

He then bent down in front of Kashi and held his trembling hands, speaking in a newly calming voice, “Hey, Kashi… Daddy is here. You are alright now. You are safe, so do you want to play a game? It’s the alphabet game. I say a letter and you say a word that starts with the letter, ok?”

Kashi hesitated for a moment before nodding his head quickly and rubbing tears out of his eyes with his hands balled up into fists, “O-Ok…”

     “‘C’,” Keith smiled.

     “Cat,” Kashi answered, looking down.

Keith nodded his head, “Good job! Now ‘W’”

     “Water.”

     “D,” Keith spoke, watching as Kashi’s trembling started to disappear as he calmed down.

     “Daddy,” Kashi sniffled, leaning forward as he wrapped his arms around Keith’s neck. “I missed you daddy… Please don’t leave me again.”

Keith was confused what Kashi meant by that, passing it off as an effect of the panic attack Kashi just had. Kashi never had a full blown panic attack before, so Keith wasn’t sure what to expect from that. He just hugged the toddler and waited for him to let go.

Lance took the opportunity of Keith being trapped in a hug to talk to him, muttering out a cautious, “How are you feeling?”

     “After my son just had a panic attack?” Keith snapped, glaring at Lance once again. “Pretty terrible though that was already what I was feeling.”

     “Daddy…” Kashi sniffled, pressing his cheek up against Keith’s stomach, “Why isn’t the baby kicking? Is it out already?”

Keith bit his lip, trying everything in his power not to completely lose it on everyone in the room. He shut his eyes and pushed Kashi off of him and onto the couch, stepping away as he snapped out, “The baby is dead, Kashi. Daddy killed it like he always does.”

     “W-What?...” Kashi’s eyes widened in fear.

Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulder and pulled him away from Kashi and Cora, “Keith enough! You are not going to talk like that, especially to the kids!”

Keith hit Lance’s hand off of his shoulder, starting to walk back towards the stairs again until Lance grabbed his shoulder again and held him in place, “Talk to me! You haven’t talked to me in weeks and the only thing you’ve said to me now is insults at me! Are you even still in there? I’m hurting too Keith, you know? You always seem to forget that when things like this happen, and you treat me like shit!”

     “Lance, I don’t want to fight,” Keith muttered out, not turning around to face him.

Lance wasn't going to have that as an answer though. He gripped Keith’s shoulder tighter as he shouted out, “Well I do! It’s better than what you’ve been doing the past three weeks! I would rather just fight until it’s over between us instead of me being trapped with someone that refuses to talk to me! It sucks, Keith! We don’t have Voltron to keep us together anymore, so either leave or actually try to get better!”

Without thinking, Keith spun around and punched Lance in the face, his chest heaving and teeth clenched as Lance stumbled back away from him. Keith’s eyes widened when he came to his senses, but it was too late to back out now. Lance came at him and shoved him against the wall, pinning him there by his shoulders.

     “What are you going to do, punch me too like the time we lost Steven?!” Keith screamed, his whole body clenched up in preparation for the punch.

     “Daddy stop yelling!” Kashi covered his ears, hiding his head under a pillow. Cora ran into the guest room where she had been staying, not wanting to watch her parents fight.

Lance brought his hand up to Keith’s chin and neck, holding his head up against the wall firmly as he growled out, “You are the one that punched first Keith. In front of our kids. So just tell me now, are you going to leave or stay and actually become a good husband and father again?! Because right now you are terrible at both!”

Tears were falling from Keith’s eyes, but Lance tried not to take pity on him. He kept his eyes in a glare towards Keith, keeping his lips tight together in a frown as Keith spoke through his tears, “I’ll leave now since I’m no good for anything anymore.”

     “What?” Lance’s eyes widened. He let Keith go when Keith started to make a move to push him off. “Are you seriously leaving?”

     “There’s nothing for me here on earth anyways,” Keith muttered out, walking over to the kitchen and opening up the knife drawer. “Without Voltron, my only purpose is to make a family for us, and I can’t even do it. What good is keeping me alive for?”

Keith pulled out a knife and held the tip of the blade up to his heart. Lance quickly ran over to him, “Keith stop! What are you thinking?”

Tears were falling down Keith’s red and puffy face as he held the knife close to his chest, “I have more kids that are dead than alive now! It makes me feel sick, and I just want to die! I want to die, Lance! Maybe if I die, I can take care of them wherever they are, and you can stay here and take care of the ones that are alive. Does that sound good?”

     “But what about me?” Lance asked, stepping closer to Keith, cautious of the knife in his hands. “What am I going to do when you leave? What are Kashi and Cora going to do when they think of you and know that you killed yourself to be with their other siblings when they were right there needing you just as much if not more!”

Keith shook his head, “They have you… Juliet and Steven… this past baby we didn’t even get to name - they don’t have anyone!” Keith broke out into a sob.

Lance took his moment of weakness to try to grab the knife from Keith’s hands, only causing Keith to freak out and try to fight Lance off of him. Keith kicked Lance in the thigh and tried to pull the knife back from him, only pulling it back a bit too far and cutting his arm from his forearm up.

Keith cried out in pain and Lance finally grabbed the knife, throwing it in the sink before sinking down to Keith’s level to hold him in place before he could do anything else. Blood was streaming down Keith’s arm and to the ground as Keith sobbed loudly, screaming out and begging Lance, “Please just let me die! I’ll be happier dead, I promise! I’ll be better!”

     “Stop saying that, Keith!” Lance begged, trying to cover up his own crying by biting his lip and holding Keith still in front of him.

Keith still struggled against his hold, but after a few minutes, both were in an exasperated heap on the floor, sobbing and holding onto each other as they trembled and cried. Keith held onto Lance tightly, crying loud enough to worry the neighbors if there wasn’t a storm to cover up the noise. Lance was crying just as much, holding Keith in his arms as if he was going to whither away as soon as he let go.

     “Please don’t leave me,” Lance begged, sniffling and hiccuping from his breath coming and going so quickly every few seconds. “I love you so much, I need you more than any of our kids, dead or alive, do.”

Keith shook his head and rubbed his tears into Lance’s shirt, “It just hurts too much to know I have so many… so many babies dead because I couldn’t keep them alive. It’s always my fault when they die.”

     “It's never your fault... A-And this time wasn’t your fault either,” Lance muttered out, sniffling and looking down at the blood between him and Keith from Keith’s arm. It was bleeding a lot, but Lance knew Keith was safe from any real danger. He would wrap it up later after he was sure everything was fine between them. “There is only one possible reason why the baby could have died this time.”

Keith went silent, brushing his fingers across his lips as he croaked out, “I messed up when I went into my Galra form… It reached my stomach and killed the baby.”

     “And I told you to do it. You tried to tell me the consequences, but I made you do it, because I was selfish, and I didn’t want my family to think I was crazy,” Lance sniffled, holding Keith’s hands in between their chests. “I’m so sorry, Keith… This is all my fault. I’m just so- I’m so stupid! We were free from the Galra threat, but my damned stupidity was what made us lose the baby this time…”

     “Lance don’t blame yourself; I hate it when you blame yourself,” Keith tried to argue, but Lance kissed Keith’s lips before he could say anything.

Lance then leaned back a bit and brushed Keith’s hair out of his face, “I’ll never make it up to you, I know. There's no replacing what we’ve lost, and you need time… but I want you to know that you have a family here, right now and living, that needs you more than you know. And we miss you. We will all be together with even our lost babies soon, but please live as long as you can beside me and the kids before going to them.”

     “I don’t think I can ever give you a big happy family though,” Keith sniffled, looking down. “I can’t do anything else except for fight for Voltron, so what am I even good for now?”

     “You can give me a happy family,” Lance kissed Keith on the cheek. “Staying happy and staying alive is all you need to be good for our family.”

They lay there for another hour, maybe not coming to a conclusion just yet, but they at least came to a compromise that Keith was going to stay alive for the family he had here and now. They fell asleep a few minutes after Keith agreed to try to be happy again, and Lance woke up first an hour later. He looked down at Keith’s bloody arm that had stopped bleeding by now, and he got up to get a towel to start cleaning all of the blood up.

He wrapped Keith’s arm up in bandages and carried him over to the couch bridal style before laying on the couch and holding Keith in his lap. He covered the both of them up with a blanket just as Cora and Kashi sneaked into the living room, still wary of a fight possibly going on. Lance caught them out of the corner of his eye though and smiled, motioning for them to come over to the couch once they realized they had been discovered.

They tiptoed over to him and climbed up on the couch, looking at their father who hadn’t been himself in so long. Kashi crawled into Keith’s lap and asked Lance, “Is daddy ok now?”

Lance smiled and nodded his head, “He is doing better than before. He just needs time to feel better about not having the baby anymore.”

As soon as he answered Kashi, the front door opened and his mother came in along with his father and two sisters. He turned to them and raised his finger up to his lip, “Keith is sleeping.”

     “Is he better?” his mother asked, a look of pity spread across her face.

Lance bit his lip and looked down, “Than before, yes.”

His mother let out a sigh of relief, “That is good… You can stay on the couch while we prepare dinner. You four need the rest.”

Lance gladly did as his mother asked of him, falling asleep soon after until his sister woke him up to get him to come to dinner. He held on tighter to Keith and muttered out to her, “You can take the twins to the table. I’ll wake Keith up and talk to him for a minute.”

     “Alrighty. Don’t take too long!” Juliet told him, picking up Cora and Kashi in her arms carefully so they wouldn’t wake up and start crying from being picked up so roughly.

She walked away and Lance woke up Keith with a kiss, running his fingers through the other boy’s black hair, studying his face that he didn’t get to look at this closely in so long. He smiled when Keith’s eyes fluttered open, and he muttered out a tired, “Why’d you wake me up…”

     “Dinner,” Lance answered. “Are ya hungry?”

Keith’s eyes narrowed a bit and he awkwardly shook his head, “Not really… I’ll sit with you while you eat though.”

     “Well my family has dinner in the dining room. Will you be ok sitting with all of them too?”

Keith bit his lip and looked down, seeming conflicted. He looked back up at Lance and asked, “Can I get up at any time if I don’t feel comfortable? I love your family, I really do, but even talking to you now is hard for me to do… I just can’t find the energy in me to talk to more people than just you.”

Lance kissed Keith’s forehead and started to get up, “You can do whatever you want, Keith. My family will understand. My mom lost a kid once, so she understands what you are going through, though she didn’t lose it in a way anywhere near as gruesome as yours was.”

Keith nodded his head and got up with Lance, using him as support as he stood. Lance led him over to the dinner table where everyone was sitting and waiting for them while talking amonst themselves. A lot of Lance’s extended family weren’t there tonight, his mother setting a rule to not come over as much because it probably overwhelmed Keith and the kids. Today, it was only Lance’s two sisters, his nephew, his niece, his mother, and his father.

When they stepped into the room, Kashi and Cora looked up and shouted their parents’ names, both shouting ‘daddy’ this time since they missed Keith so much. It was usually Cora that was the one to shout ‘papa’ but she had a feeling Keith needed love from her as well.

Keith smiled as they hopped down from their seats to run up to them and hug them. He picked them up and held them close in a group hug, “Hey, you two.”

     “Did you go on a mission, daddy?” Cora asked, “Is that why you’ve been away for so long?”

Keith took her question as an idea for a lie and nodded his head, “Yeah, I was, but that will be the last mission, I promise. There was just a riot I had to take care of.”

He brought the twins back to their seats at the table before retreating back to his own seat besides Lance. He leaned on him and held his hand, already feeling exhausted from this much contact with people. Lance’s mother turned to the attention to him though and asked, “How are you feeling? Better, I hope?”

Keith could feel Lance begging his mother with his eyes to not talk to him. It was embarrassing that Lance had to do that for his sake, but it was needed. Keith tried to be strong for Lance though and nodded his head, “I am thanks to you all. I think it was just harder than the last two times because I didn’t…” Keith teared up and looked down, “I didn’t understand why it happened…”

Lance wrapped his arms tighter around Keith, “It’s ok to cry, don’t hold it in.”

Keith sniffled and held Lance’s arm, “I’m fine, I’ve been crying too much lately anyway.”

Keith managed to take hold of his emotions and for the first time since he lost his most recent baby, talked with people and actually enjoyed himself, getting his mind off of everything for a few minutes. By the time dinner was over, Keith was almost like his regular self again and was now even closer to Lance’s family. Lance was happy to know that they approved of him.

     “Kashi, Cora, do you want to go get ready for bed?” Lance asked them, getting up from the dinner table.

His sister Juliet whined out and held her arms out to Lance, “Why do you have to end dinner so early? Keith is telling us about your wedding and how aliens invaded it! You can’t just interrupt it when he is getting to the ending.”

     “I’m not anywhere near the ending,” Keith laughed. “If you think the story is crazy so far, wait until I tell you what happened at the reception.”

Juliet gasped and then whined out again, “Lance, stop being such a dad and let Kashi and Cora stay up later. Where is that fun uncle side you used to have?”

     “Hey, it’s still here!” Lance defended himself and walked over to where his niece and nephew were. He wrapped his arms around them and smiled, “I am the fun uncle to your kids, and I’m the dad to my own. That’s how it works.”

Juliet rolled her eyes, “Fine, fine. Take them to bed. Cora and I will clean up while you four go upstairs and get some rest.”

Lance and Keith did as she asked, walking upstairs with Keith holding Kashi and Lance holding Cora. They walked into the guest room at first, but Kashi started whining, grabbing onto Keith’s shirt and tearing up as he cried out, “I don’t want to sleep in here. I want to sleep with daddy!”

Keith held Kashi closer, “Kashi calm down. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep if that makes you feel better, and you will see me in the morning too.”

He shook his head and whined out, “Nu-uh, I want to sleep with daddy!”

Keith looked to Lance for help, but Lance just smiled and looked to Cora, “Do you wanna sleep with daddy and papa too?”

Cora nodded her head with a smile creeping up on her face.

     “Lance, we don’t even have room for them on your bed,” Keith argued softly, not wanting to sound mad. He was actually happy that both of the kids didn’t want to leave his side, but he knew sleeping with two toddlers and another grown man in a twin bed was a recipe for a sleepless night. He was only thinking of how cramped it would be and not factoring in what the night would be like if someone fell off the bed too. That would be a whole new kind of sleepless night, especially if it was one of the twins that fell off.

Lance pat him on the back though and walked over to the dresser they were holding the twins’ clothes in for now, opening up Cora’s pj drawer as he assured Keith, “Our bed on the ship was just as small as this one, and we did just fine. Let’s sleep with them while they are still small.”

Keith rolled his eyes but easily gave in, agreeing with Lance though he wasn’t in the mood to admit it, “Fine, I guess. But if one of us falls off in the middle of the night, I want you to take full responsibility and take care of it.”

     “I would do that regardless!” Lance grinned and kissed Keith on the cheek.

They dressed the twins for bed and read them a story from a book left over from Lance’s childhood. It was nice to read the kids human tales instead of Altean tales though those were interesting. Lance read the story of Cinderella to the kids for the first time, and Keith surprisingly didn’t even know about the tale so he was happy to teach it to all three of his family members.

Kashi was the one who loved Cinderella the most. He kept demanding to look at the picture of her dress on the front cover, so mesmerized by how pretty it was. Cora was too busy fuming about the stepsisters and stepmother to even care about the dress on the cover though when she did get a glimpse of it, she was in just as much awe as Kashi.

Keith smiled and leaned back in bed, watching his kids as they learned the story of Cinderella. He rubbed his stomach absent-mindedly, not realizing it until Lance put his hand on his and asked in a worried tone, “Are you alright?”

     “Hmm?” Keith smiled, looking down at his hand and realizing what he was doing. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t even realize I was-!”

Lance interrupted him with a kiss, pulling away seconds later just to say, “I love it when you do that.”

Keith blushed, “There’s not even a… a baby in there any…” he looked down and bit his lip, curling his knees up to his chest before hiding his head in his arms. He started crying again though it was silent. Lance would have thought that maybe he was laughing to himself if he didn’t see tears falling onto Keith’s still pudgy stomach.

Lance sighed and put the book down, sitting up on the bed more to lean over and hug Keith, “Let it all out, Keith… This is how you heal.”

     “I would be holding him right now if he wasn’t dead, but he is and-!” Keith broke out into a sob, his face bright red and puffy as tears fell down his cheeks. He shook his head, “I can’t cry in front of the kids. I can do this another time.”

     “Yeah, the kids don’t understand this, but you are allowed to cry in front of them,” Lance ran his fingers through Keith’s hair. “Maybe we should get some sleep, yeah?”

Keith nodded his head and fell over slowly onto the pillow beside him, the kids getting off of Lance’s lap to crawl into Keith’s arms. Keith held both Cora and Kashi close, using their raven colored hair to wipe his tears. Lance laid down next to the three of them and put his hand on Keith’s shoulder, rubbing it soothingly as Keith calmed down.

Lance hated seeing Keith cry. He hated being reminded of why Keith was crying and what happened three weeks ago, but he was glad Keith was working through it. Keith got through things with open emotions while Lance got through things on his own. Both hid their grief, but it was never long before they needed each other to get through it too. Being with Keith was enough help for Lance to get through this.

The family fell asleep together for the first time in a while, knowing in their minds that they really were a happy family.

A year passed; Cora went to preschool, Keith and Lance homeschooled Kashi since Kashi never stopped crying when he was at school and away from his parents, and they moved into a house near where Pidge and Matt lived. The kids were four now, both finding themselves in activities they excelled at. Cora played on a preschool soccer team that Lance coached after finding out that the coach was retiring and the team might be disbanded. He loved teaching Cora and the other kids how to play soccer, having his own preschool soccer team that looked up to him.

Kashi became interested in what both Keith and Lance feared he would get into. He wanted to go to space. He wanted to be a pilot, he wanted to be an astronaut, and he wanted to be a part of Voltron. Keith and Lance both tried to get him onto different things, letting him try out art, soccer, and even fashion, but Kashi never changed his mind about what he wanted to do. They hoped the phase would end, because there was no way they were letting the Garrison find out about their family.

All was well for now though. Their team mates from Voltron were coming back today to visit for a few weeks, so they were going to get to enjoy seeing each other again and hopefully Allura and Shiro’s new baby as well as Hunk and Shay’s.

      “Lance today’s the day they are arriving,” Keith kissed Lance on the cheek as he walked through the door, returning from soccer practice with Cora.

Kashi ran up and hugged his sister, “Uncle Hunk and Uncle Shiro are coming!”

Cora’s eyes widened and she squealed out in joy, “Uncle Hunk! Is Great Uncle Coran and Aunt Allura coming too?”

Keith smiled and nodded his head, “Yes, of course. Aunt Pidge and Matt are going to be here soon, so get out of your soccer clothes and they’ll be here by the time you get downstairs.”

     “Ok daddy,” Cora obeyed and ran upstairs to her room.

Kashi ran up to Lance and hugged him, “Papa, daddy taught me how to throw a knife at a target!”

     “Kashi, I told you not to tell him that!” Keith snapped, eyes wide with worry as he stared at Lance and smiled awkwardly, “I also taught him how to multiply.”

Lance frowned, “Keith, you are always so afraid of bad things happening to the kids, yet you teach Kashi how to handle knives?”

     “But that’s why I’m teaching him!” Keith argued, throwing his hands out in frustration. “He now knows how to use a knife safely, and he wanted to learn! I couldn’t say no to him, Lance.”

     “Please say no to him from now on when he wants to learn something other than what a kid his age is usually learning,” Lance sighed, closing his eyes. “I’m going upstairs to take a shower.”

He started to walk away, but Keith couldn’t let him leave on such a low note. He instructed Kashi to go to Cora to make sure she didn’t get distracted when getting dressed, and he followed after Lance upstairs to their bedroom.

     “Hey, Lance, is something else wrong?” Keith asked, closing the door to their bedroom and following Lance into the bathroom.

Lance turned on the shower and took off his shirt, “You taught our kid knife tricks, of course something is wrong.”

     “Lance, I said I’m sorry,” Keith sighed. “Is that really it? You seemed like you were in a bad mood the moment you walked into the door.”

Lance shook his head, still frowning, “I don’t know…”

Keith wrapped his arms around Lance, leaning his head on his shoulder as he muttered out, “Can we talk about it? You know it’s always better when we talk about it.”

     “I just,” Lance bit his lip and held Keith’s hand, “Shiro and Allura are bringing a baby, Hunk and Shay have a baby too, and we… I know I’m such a hypocrite for thinking this when I tell you all the time to be happy with what we have, but I can’t help but feel like they are so happy with new life, and-!”

     “We are stuck in the past with our one lucky try…” Keith finished his sentence, looking down. “And they are probably going to be successful several more times after that while we only have two kids that are already fine without us now to be honest.”

Lance stood there speechless for a moment, surprised that Keith was saying exactly what the both of them were thinking and horrified that he was correct. He shook his head and put his hand up though, “We can’t have another kid no matter how we feel about it all. You can’t suffer another miscarriage or stillbirth and neither can I. Not to mention, you’ve been lucky these past few times, but giving birth and miscarriages are not good for your body. We can’t use doctors either while on Earth because of what you are, so it would be too dangerous.”’

     “I’ve given birth before though without the help of Coran and Allura. I was fine,” Keith muttered out.

Lance eyes widened, “Keith…?” He shook his head and put his hands on Keith’s shoulders, “You would have died once as well if Allura and Cora weren’t there! Don’t you realize how dangerous it would be if you got pregnant again? I know I just said I want another baby, but it can’t be through you.”

Keith’s stomach turned at those words. What did Lance mean he wanted a baby but it couldn’t be through him? What other way was there? He would feel useless if the baby was gotten any other way except for his own pregnancy. True, he was afraid to try again, but he would rather try again than get another baby from someone else, officially deeming himself useless when it came to making babies.

Keith sniffled, looking down with his hand over his heart. He had no idea what to say to that. Lance realized that his words might have come off wrong and he stepped forward, “Keith I didn’t mean-!”

     “It’s been over a year. I want to get pregnant again,” Keith stated, tears forming in his eyes as he looked down.

Lance shook his head, “Keith, no, there are too many risks-!”

     “I don’t care!” Keith shouted out before catching his temper. He bit his lip and stepped back. “If it doesn’t work this one last time, then you get your baby any way you want, but I just want to try again before we do that… I want to officially know I’m useless when it comes to making babies before we give up.”

     “We already know you are!” Lance argued, frustrated with Keith for trying to justify putting himself in danger with pregnancy. His eyes widened when he realized what he said though, the look on Keith’s face giving away the fact that he messed up. Tears were streaming down Keith’s cheeks as Lance tried to backtrack what he said, “You aren’t useless, that’s n-not what I meant. I just mean that you are unable to safely have a kid.”

Keith put his hand on the counter in an attempt to calm himself, but it wasn’t working. His eyes watered as all of his fears were coming true in his mind. He stepped back and muttered out under his breath, “I know what you mean.”

     “No,” Lance grabbed Keith’s wrist as Keith started to leave the bathroom. “Keith, stop overreacting! I really didn’t mean you were useless. Just sit down and let’s finish talking, ok?”

Keith shook his head and started to pull away, “I feel sick, I don’t want to talk.”

     “You feel sick because you don’t believe me!” Lance raised his voice.

This cause Keith to snap, slapping his hand away from Lance’s hold as he shouted back even louder, ‘Yeah, no shit, I feel sick about that! I always thought that you secretly felt I was useless, and now you finally accidentally let out the truth! Of course I’m mad! I’m mad at myself!”

Lance moved his lips to say something, but the doorbell rang and Keith jerked himself away, glaring at Lance and stepping back, “I’m not useless. I’ll prove it to you.”

     “I know you’re not,” Lance tried to argue, but Keith walked out without another word to say.

Keith ran down the stairs, wiping tears from his eyes before he made his way to the door and opened it, “Hey, Pidge, I’m gonna need you to help me out with-!” he cut himself off by screaming out in surprise when he saw Shiro standing in the doorway. “You are here so early!”

He jumped up on Shiro and wrapped his arms around his neck, rubbing the rest of his tears off onto his shirt, “I missed you so much!”

Shiro wrapped his arms around Keith, walking into the house as he said, “It’s been way too long! I need to come back more often, because it felt like forever.”

    “Where is your baby?” Keith asked, looking past Shiro at Allura who was holding their baby girl that looked more like Allura than Shiro. She had dark skin and white hair, but looking closer, Keith could see that she had his eyes at least.

He looked at Allura for permission to hold her baby. When she gave him the ‘ok’, he quickly picked their daughter up and held her, rocking her carefully as he asked the parents, “What is her name?”

     “Nori,” Allura smiled, glancing at Shiro. “Shiro picked the name.”

     “She is so pretty,” Keith smiled, “I wish I was with you guys when she was born.”

Allura stepped into the house along with the rest of the team that Keith didn’t even bother to notice. Coran, SHay, and Hunk were too busy catching up with Pidge and Matt to care anyways. When they were all in the house, Keith was now holding both Nori and Terrin, Hunk and Shay’s son in his arms as he talked to everyone.

Kashi and Cora came downstairs, becoming the new topic of conversation when everyone noticed how much they had grown. Kashi was almost up to Shiro’s hips now in height and Cora was getting there as well. Shiro couldn’t get over how much bigger they had gotten in the year he missed of their lives.  Lance came downstairs soon after though, causing a new tension to take hold of the room. Just between Keith and Lance alone, everyone could tell that something happened before they arrived. Lance tried to cover it up by running over to Keith and looking at the babies in his hands, “Oh my gosh, my new nephew and niece! What are their names?”

His cover up failed because Keith was glaring at him the whole time, mentally cursing at him for daring to be so close to him. Though everyone noticed it, no one chose to address how the married couple was acting towards each other, knowing full-well that couples fought and got over it themselves.

The rest of the evening and night was filled with fun though, Lance and Keith avoiding each other momentarily and enjoying spending time with their team mates. Keith was latched on to Shiro and his baby the whole time, never letting go of either of them and following them around wherever they went. Lance spent time with Hunk and Shay and their baby, happy to be with his best friend and new nephew after so long. Pidge and Matt hung out with Allura most of the night though they did choose to talk to the others a few times that evening, and Kashi and Cora were mesmerized by Coran the whole night, hanging on him and talking to him and no one else the whole time.

When it was time to go to bed, Hunk and his family said their goodbyes and left to go to his parents’ house to spend the night. Pidge and Matt also went back home while Shiro, Allura, and their baby took one of the guest rooms and Coran took the other though the twins were begging him to stay in their room and play dress-up with them like they used to.

Lance and Keith went upstairs to their room once everyone was settled down, both still holding tension for each other though Lance was trying to ease it before they had to get into the same bed. Keith walked into the room and took off his shirt and pants, immediately throwing them to the ground before collapsing onto the bed in a huff.

Lance got onto the bed, laughing a little as he asked, “You exhausted too after spending time with them again?”

Keith glanced at Lance, frowning as he muttered out, “What makes you think I’m letting you sleep on the bed tonight?”

     “Because you love me unconditionally?” Lance tried, leaning forward until Keith’s persistent glare proved he needed a better approach. He sighed, “Keith, I’m not gonna sleep on the couch with the team here. It will raise questions about why we are fighting, and  I don’t want to have a conversation with them about how you want to get pregnant and I don’t want you to get pregnant and on, and on, and on… It’s just going to split us apart more.”

     “Because you know I’m right, and the team will agree with me,” Keith rolled over on his side, facing away from Lance now.

Lance had every urge in his body to reply back with ‘No, I know I’m right and the team will agree with me’, but he knew that kind of talk will get nowhere with Keith. He wanted to sleep on the bed tonight, so he was going to have to sweetly try to end this conversation while still making it clear which side he was on when it came to Keith getting pregnant again.

He scooted closer to Keith and hugged him, nuzzling his cheek into the nook of Keith’s neck as he muttered out, “It’s that kind of time where your galra genes are acting up and making you want a baby isn’t it?”

     “What are you even talking about?” Keith asked, voice cold as he turned to look at Lance with his eyebrows furrowed.

Lance shrugged, “Well, you always seem to want a baby around the same time every month for a few days… It’s like a period!”

Keith gasped and slapped him on the shoulder, “I don’t have a period; I’m a man!”

Lance laughed, “I know, I know!... But it is true. There are a few days every month where this topic comes up and you start wanting a baby again, but as soon as the three days are over, you immediately regret everything you did and said. Imagine getting pregnant during the three days and realizing afterwards that you made a big mistake.”

     “Getting pregnant won’t be a mistake!” Keith argued, getting frustrated again. His eyes were slowly turning yellow only on the edges of the whites of his eyes right now, and he was sweating profusely on his forehead and neck.

Lance’s eyebrows furrowed, “Babe, you’re burning up… Do you feel alright?”

Keith aired his shirt out to cool himself off, getting up on his knees as he started to take his pants off, “I just… Yeah, ok it's around that time.”

     "Do you want me to get an ice pack?" Lance asked, starting to get up out of bed until Keith pushed him back down again. "I think you know what cools me down when my body and mind gets like this."

     “But we are fighting. Is now really the best time?” Lance asked, still sitting up though in worry of Keith getting too overheated.

Keith shook his head and started to take off Lance’s shirt, “We used to have angry sex all the time; it will be just like that. Please just fuck me and tell me you're getting me pregnant, ok? I promise I’ll stop being mad at you after that.”

     “I guess that’s a deal,” Lance sighed, starting to shimmy off his boxers. He threw off the covers so Keith could be more comfortable and started to take off Keith’s underwear as Keith leaned over to pull a condom out of the drawer.

Keith pulled the condom out, going through the motions as fast as possible, not because he was hot and ready to have sex immediately due to his galra gene kicking in at a bad time - though that was part of it -, but he had a plan he was following through with now. He took the condom out of the drawer as fast as he could and unwrapped it, quickly biting into the front of it to pierce a hole and break it.

Right now, Keith wasn’t in control of his body; his galra gene was, and his galra gene was going to do everything in its power to get him pregnant.

He sat up and leaned forward to kiss Lance as he covered his length with the condom, straddling him as he grinned and looked down at Lance, “Do you want to be in charge, or do you want me to ride you?”

Lance grinned and sat up, switching their positions so he was in between Keith’s legs, “That sounded like a challenge? I’m gonna be in charge of you all night, Keith.”

Keith laughed gleefully and wrapped his arms around Lance, “That also sounds like a challenge: Who can last the longest?”

     “You’re on,” Lance positioned himself to enter Keith, slowly pushing in in order not to startle or hurt Keith too much. He leaned down and kissed Keith’s cheek, “I love you so much Keith…”

     “I love you too…” Keith smiled, brushing his fingers on Lance’s cheek. 

He was caught up in the moment, too caught up in the moment to realize what he just did to himself and to Lance.  All night long the challenge went on, both almost going crazy with pleasure while also keeping it down for their guests and kids. By the time the night was over and they had long since fallen asleep from exhaustion and content, Keith was pregnant again.

He found out a few days later from a test. He was out of his mind spell caused by his galra genes, now fully aware of how wrong what he did was. He felt sick to his stomach and he knew it was more than just morning sickness making him feel that way.  He… broke a condom on purpose to get pregnant even though Lance made it very clear he didn’t want another kid at least through Keith. Keith regretted everything more than he could tell, and he knew this feeling was only going to grow worse until he told Lance what he did and the consequence of his stupidity. Lance was probably going to hate him for what he did, and he was scared to give him any kind of news about the pregnancy. Would he make him get rid of it? He was sure Lance would not be happy about him going full term with the pregnancy due to birth complications, but would he really stop the pregnancy before it got to that point?

Keith was wondering these things even a whole week later while at dinner with the team in their dining room. He was so lost in thought about how Lance would react that even the team noticed how out of it he was. Shiro was sitting beside him on his right side and was the the first to ask, “Keith are you ok? You look sick…”

     “I’m fine,” Keith answered a bit too quickly though he covered it up with a smile. He continued to speak so no one would try pry, “I was just lost in thought for a second there, that’s all.”

     “Do you want to talk about it?” Allura pried anyway, though it was innocently just her worrying about Keith’s well-being.

Keith shook his head, “No, I’m fine, really.”

He felt a hand cover his own and looked to the side to see Lance, eyes filled with worry as he asked, “Are you sure?”

They had stopped fighting. Having a night full of just sex made them forget what they were even about. Keith remembered why, but he had no reason to be mad now. No, he knew the only person that should even have a hint of anger directed towards them was him. He did something terrible. Lance was going to hate him. Lance was going to make him get rid of the kid, so Keith had no chance of dying. Keith was going to hate him after that, he knew he would. With one stupid night and one stupid move, he caused the end of their relationship, didn’t he?

He grabbed Lance’s hand and bit his lip, “Actually, can I talk to you for a second?”

Lance looked at everyone at the table from the corner of his eye and then back to Keith, smiling awkwardly, “Yeah? Let’s go to our room to talk.”

He got up from the table and Keith followed, hands trembling with fear of what was going to happen in the next few minutes. Lance was going to hate him, Lance was going to hate him, Lance was definitely going to hate him. Keith hated himself. He had to prepare himself for the reaction Lance gave him, because he knew no matter what, it was going to be one of anger.

And he wholeheartedly deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!
> 
> The choices Keith made in this chapter were bad, I know, but that was his galra gene taking him over and not something he would do on a daily basis, so don't hate him as much as he hates himself rn please. Let's hope Lance reacts the same way??? 
> 
> Sorry this took so long to get out! I'm at Universal right now and it is hard to edit when I come back late at night tired and I wake up early in the morning having to leave again. Thank you so much for all of your comments though, those are the things that kept me up editing last night to three AM without a care of what my state would be in the morning! (Im fine) But yeah, keep up the comments, I love them! I love you guys, and you are the best readers I could ever ask for!


	8. Pregnant Again... But at what Cost?

Pregnant Again… But at what cost?

     “Keith, we’ve been standing in our room for five minutes…” Lance urged Keith on to speak in as subtle of a way as possible. “What is making you so nervous to even tell me about? You are worrying me.”

Keith bit his lip and let his gaze fall to the floor for the tenth time that minute as he debated on if he should tell Lance or not. He knew it would only get harder and harder to tell him though, so he decided to finally start letting out some of the truth, “So… you remember last week when we had sex all night after our fight?”

     “How could I forget?” Lance grinned, his stance relaxing a bit when he was reminded of such a good memory. Keith gave him a moment to be happy, because he was sure that would be the last time he would see Lance smile because of him for a while.  When Lance’s smile faded and he looked to Keith to continue explaining himself, Keith took in a deep breath and crossed his arms, muttering out through a shaky breath, “Well I’m pregnant.”

The room went silent. It wasn’t hard for a room with only two people in it to go silent, but this silence made even the air around them dead. Keith would have thought his ears stopped working if it weren’t for a breath that managed to escape Lance’s throat as he caught his surprise. He furrowed his brows in confusion and blinked a few times before shaking his head and saying, “Are you sure? Did you take a test, or is this just based on a feeling?”

     “A test,” Keith replied, “I took three times just to make sure, and all of them came back positive.”

Lance put his hand up to his face as if he had a headache. Keith wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He rested his face in the palm of his hand, muttering out a tired, “I used a condom… I used multiple condoms throughout the night just to make sure, and-! Oh Dios mío, how could I have been so stupid?! Of course a whole night of sex is going to result in that when it comes to our luck!”

     “Are you mad or happy about it?” Keith asked, keeping his hand over his stomach protectively. 

Lance kept shaking his head, looking down with a frown on his face, “We can’t… We can’t go through with it, Keith. Since we don’t live in the castle, you can’t be pregnant. It’s not safe, and I’m not going to let you do something that could get you killed, no matter what the circumstance!”

     “Lance, I can’t lose a fourth child just because you are scared,” Keith started to raise his voice, trying his best to remain calm since he knew he was still in the wrong here. “I wanted this child. I will take full responsibility for whatever happens to me.”

     “Great, so you are willing to keep the baby until it eventually dies? A-And then you’ll probably die along with it without the medical help from Coran and Allura, leaving Kashi and Cora and me to deal with it all once you are gone!” Lance ran his fingers through his hair, “I can’t go through that Keith. I don’t like the thought of killing one of our babies since we’ve always tried so hard for one, but now that it affects your health, you come first in my book.”

     “I’m not killing it,” Keith argued. 

Lance nodded his head, “Just turn into your galra form. We can just pretend you were never pregnant since you will barely notice the effects of the miscarriage.”

     “Lance-!”

     “At least this time, you won’t have to push the kid out since it is this early on. The kid is probably going to die later on anyways, so why wait until you have to push it out and deal with another dead baby on your-!”

     “Lance, I’m not killing the baby!” Keith snapped, raising his voice in order to cut him off before he could finish his last sentence. His chest was moving up and down with heavy breaths harbored so he wouldn’t cry. Keith sniffled anyway but continued to speak, “I….I broke the condom on purpose so I would get pregnant. I want this. Even after my three day phase of wanting to get pregnant, I still want this.”

Lance looked down at the ground, eyes wide in disbelief, “You...You did what?”

     “I bit into the condom before I put it on you so it wouldn't work,” Keith repeated finding it easier to tell the truth a second time. 

Lance still couldn’t believe what he was hearing though. He shook his head and put his hand on the door, “You tricked me… You just wanted to have makeup sex so you could get pregnant, didn’t you? You don’t even care about this family anymore, all you care about is being pregnant!”

     “No, I care about making you kids, so we can have a big family!” Keith argued. 

     “If you cared about the kids, you would be fine with not being the one to have them, cause you know they… they always die when you try! I’m sorry for being so brutal about it, but I have to be to get it through your mind! They die, you are always close to death, and I’m sick of it! I have to stand by and watch you break apart figuratively and sometimes literally every single time, and I don’t want to do it anymore!”

Keith held his hands up to his stomach when Lance stepped closer, afraid he was going to punch the baby out of him right then and there. Lance didn’t make a move, but that didn’t keep Keith from being cautious. He hovered his hands over his stomach and spoke in a low tone to let Lance know he was never changing his mind about having this baby, “I’m keeping it. You can either help me out and make sure this one survives or make me leave so you don’t have to ‘stand by and watch’ anymore.”

Lance’s hands were balled up in fists at his sides while tears welled up in his eyes. His lip curled up as if he was about to let out a sob, but all that came out when he opened his mouth were the cold words, “Then leave.”

Keith’s eyes widened, “Seriously? I’m pregnant and you are making me leave?”

     “I’m making you leave because you got pregnant by breaking a fucking condom on purpose. You can go have the baby die somewhere else along with you,” Lance spoke, tears falling down his cheeks now. 

Keith shook his head stepping out into the hallway that led to the downstairs, “Lance you don’t mean that. You are just angry and saying things you will regret as soon as I leave!”

     “No, I’m pretty sure I never want to see you again,” Lance spoke through his anger once more, just trying his best to remain calm and not completely scream at Keith. 

Keith stopped caring about keeping the noise down for the guests downstairs though. He stammered for a few seconds, but when he realized Lance really was making him leave, he brought both of his hands up to Lance’s shoulders and shoved him back into the room as hard as he could, shouting out, “I hate you! I fucking hate you!” before slamming the door with Lance still in the room.

Keith let out a sob and ran down the rest of the stairs, not even stopping when his team looked at him with worried eyes, and Coran asked, “Keith? Are you alright?”

Other questions arose from the table as well, but Keith ignored them all, walking with his eyes forward until he reached the door, opened it, walked out, and shut it behind him. He had no idea where he was going to go now that Lance made him leave, but he was never coming back to that house ever. He was going to live on the streets if he had to, just to keep this baby. 

He walked until he saw a park. It was the one that Cora’s team always played at. Keith always went to her games, though he never interacted with Lance too much there. The other soccer moms and families of the kids on the team knew he was Lance's husband, but since they feared someone from the Garrison would see them together and realize they were the previously missing space cadets, they kept the public display of their relationship on the down low. Right now, they were just two individuals with similarities to the once ‘missing’ group of people that helped in the escape of Shiro. Keith  sat down on a park bench, his back hurting too much to allow him to keep going. He laid down on it and held his stomach, thinking about what he was going to do without Lance and the kids. What was he going to do if this baby really died? Was he going to come crying back to Lance like he always did, or was he going to deal with how wrong he was and how right Lance was off on his own?

Keith eventually stopped wondering about it all and drifted off to sleep, pregnancy exhaustion taking him over. He let down his guard and fell asleep on the park bench only to wake up two hours later to three teenage boys in front of him messing with his hair and clothes.

His eyes widened and he sat up, “What are you doing? Get away from me!”

     “The homeless guy is awake!” one of the kids laughed, turning to one of his friends that was checking Keith’s jacket pockets for anything worth taking. 

The kids stepped back a bit, grins on their faces as one of them spoke again to Keith, “What are you doing sleeping in a park for kids? Are you a pedophile?”

     “No!” Keith’s eyes widened in fear at the accusation. “I-I just came here to think, and I fell asleep. I’m going home.”

     “You look like a girl with your hair like that. Are you gay?” One of the kids jeered, stepping closer to Keith. 

Keith quickly sat up and brought his knees up to his chest in a way to protect his stomach, “Kids, get away from me before I hurt you. If you even so much as touch me, I’m going to make you wish you never even entered into this park.”

     “A grown man threatening me?” the closest boy asked, turning to his friends with a grin. He then turned back to Keith and tilted his head, “Buddy, you are messing with the wrong group of ‘kids’. You see, we are the reason no one homeless even dares to come close to this neighborhood.”

    “But I’m not homeless,” Keith argued, reaching into his pocket to get out his knife, only to find that it wasn’t there anymore. 

The kid that was searching through Keith’s pockets lifted up his knife, “Looking for this?”

Keith reached out for his knife, standing up to grab it as he shouted out, “Give that back to me! Just leave me alone, or I’m going to call the cops after I beat your asses!”

     “Oh no, and who are the cops going to believe? Three innocent kids that are hurt or one homeless guy hanging out in a park for children at night?” the kid with the knife asked before slashing the tip of it towards Keith’s stomach. Keith quickly dodged it before it could cut his stomach, getting nicked on the arm instead and yelping out in pain. 

He grabbed his arm and sat down again, shouting out loudly, “That’s it, I’m going to kill you guys if you don’t leave right now!”

The kids only laughed, “You are so weird!”

     “Why is he trying to protect his stomach so much?” one kid asked. 

     “Well he looks like a girl. Maybe he’s pregnant,” the other joked, grabbing the knife from the kid who had it. 

He stepped closer and held the knife up to Keith, “What if I stabbed you right in the stomach? Do you think your brat will die, you freak?”

Keith covered up his stomach, “I’ll leave… Just give me my knife back and I’ll leave.”

     “No way!” the kid with the knife sang out with a grin spreading across his face slowly, “I wanna stab you first. Why would I pass up a chance of stabbing someone and calling it self-defense?”

Keith stood up again to try to leave, but he was pushed back again with the force of all three of the boys now. While trying to protect his stomach with one of his arms, he tried to push them away with the other until it was too much to handle. He put both of his arms out in front of him in an attempt to get all three of them off of him at once, but as soon as he lifted his arm up, he saw the tip of the blade swinging towards his stomach. 

Lance was right. 

The baby always died somehow and now he was probably going to die with it. It wasn’t like Keith was going to suck up his pride and go back to Lance for help. He wasn’t going to go to a hospital either, because he knew if he lived and they found out about his pregnancy, he wouldn’t see the outside world again. This was it. 

Keith opened his eyes when he realized he was supposed to have felt the knife stab into him a few seconds ago. Why did the boys stop? He looked in front of him to see a metal hand holding the boy’s hand with the knife just centimeters away from his stomach. 

     “You kids should go home before something happens to you and the police won’t even get to hear your side of the story,” a voice Keith knew threatened the kids calmly. 

The kids scattered and Keith practically rammed himself into the owner of the voice, hugging him tightly as he cried out, “Thank you so much, Shiro… I couldn’t fight them, because I was afraid I would accidentally turn Galra in the midst of it and do something I’d regret.”

     “If I had come two seconds later, I would have kicked these kids’ asses to space with my own Galra tech,” Shiro spoke through his gritted teeth. He held Keith close as they both sat down, “You aren’t hurt anywhere are you? Are you feeling back pains? They didn’t punch your stomach, did they?”

     “I’m guessing Lance told you I’m pregnant,” Keith sighed, leaning against Shiro as he looked up at the sky, finally relaxing on the bench. He let out a huff of air and muttered out, “He is mad about it because he thinks I’m going to die along with the baby. I think he’s just tired of burying kids though, and I hate to say this, but I understand what he's saying.”

     “So why did you fight with him?”

Keith rolled his eyes and rubbed his hand over his stomach, “So you agree with him?”

Shiro shook his head, “No, I think you won’t be happy unless you have this baby, so you should have it. Do I agree that it is a risk though? Yes, of course… But when is it not?”

     “Exactly!” Keith smiled, “It’s worth the risk… But you and everyone else are going to stay here until I have the kid so the baby and I will be safe though, right?”

Shiro tensed up, causing Keith’s heart to drop. That was going to be a no. Keith held onto Shiro’s arm and turned to him, “Please tell me you guys will be here.”

     “We were going to tell you tonight, but then all of this happened,” Shiro started, looking to Keith now. “There’s a new group of aliens forming that is terrorizing innocent planets. We don’t need to form Voltron, so don’t worry about having to go up to space with us or anything like that, but… we have to leave tomorrow. They just attacked a planet close to this galaxy actually, and we have to get there before they take complete control over it.”

     “Will that take four months though?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Shiro bit his lip and look down at his lap, “It might take six actually… The planet is located within a pocket where time is altered, making each day for us a whole month for you, which is why we are having to rush to them so quickly, because it will be almost a whole month for them before we reach them. I’ll try to do it in three days, but I can’t guarantee us being back in time... You know how missions are.”

Keith look down at his lap, his hands shaking now as he muttered out, “I’ve given birth alone before… I think I can do it again.”

     “You have Lance, Keith. He will be right there beside you,” Shiro assured Keith, but Keith shook his head, “He hates me. He made me leave! He said I either had to kill the baby or leave, and I won’t feel safe for both me and the baby being in the house with him.”

     “Lance won't hurt the baby,” Shiro sighed. “He wouldn’t do anything without your permission.”

Keith bit his lip, “He’s still mad though.”

     “He’ll get over it,” Shiro chuckled. “When he sees your baby bump, when he feels it kick, when he has to deal with your overactive emotions, and when he has to help you through morning sickness and exhaustion, he will fall in love with you being pregnant all over again. Just give him time.”

     “You really think it’ll get better?” Keith asked, tilting his head in hope that Shiro had hope for him and Lance. 

Shiro nodded his head and smiled, “It always does between you two. But let’s get back to the house. You and the baby should get some sleep after everything that just happened.”

Shiro helped Keith make his way to the house. Keith claimed he didn’t need help but he did appreciate being close to someone else after the events that occurred earlier on. When they got back to the house, everyone crowded around him, congratulating him on the pregnancy and trying to make him feel better about it since they thought he was just as mad as Lance about it. 

Keith let them know that he was very happy about the pregnancy, talking to them for a few minutes about his already early symptoms showing. Exhaustion took him over once more and he excused himself from the group to go upstairs and sleep. Since they were leaving early in the morning at a time he didn't feel like getting up at, he made sure to hug everyone twice, making them all promise to be back before he gave birth so he wouldn’t have to do it on his own. When Allura made the promise for him that they would make it back before then, he knew he was safe to believe they would make it back in time. 

He walked upstairs to his room to change, planning on sleeping downstairs on the couch since Lance was still mad at him. Though the couch was uncomfortable and he would wake up with back pains even worse than usual thanks to pregnancy, he was willing to sleep there since he deserved to sleep on the couch more than Lance.

When he walked into the bedroom, Lance was sitting on the edge of bed, staring down at his hands in deep thought. He looked up at Keith with a frown when he entered, making Keith feel like he needed to explain why he was daring to go into the room. He pointed to the closet and stuttered out a quiet, “I’m just changing my clothes. I’m going to sleep on the couch tonight.”

     “Don’t sleep on the couch,” Lance sighed, looking down at the ground. “You are pregnant; you should take the bed.”

Keith opened up the drawer slowly, “Thank you… You can sleep in the bed too, since you didn’t do anything wrong.”

     “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

     “Why?”

Lance shrugged and got up, “I want to be alone right now.”

He started to walk past Keith until he caught sight of the blood still dripping down Keith’s arm. His stopped in his tracks and his eyes widened, “How did that happen?”

Keith looked down and rolled his eyes, “I fell asleep on a bench and these three teenagers woke me up and attacked me. They didn’t touch my stomach though, so I’m fine. Shiro saved me just in time!”

Lance nodded his head, looking down at Keith’s stomach almost as if he was glaring at the baby growing inside of him. He stepped back and called out to Keith as he started to leave the room, “Clean it up with the first aid kit in the bathroom. Good night.”

Lance was then gone without another word, leaving Keith alone in the room. Keith did as Lance instructed, cleaning up his cut, disinfecting it, and wrapping it up in medical tape. He then went to bed, too tired to even stay up and worry about what the next day was going to be like or what the rest of his pregnancy was going to be like. For right now, he was going to sleep, and hopefully tomorrow this whole situation would be better. Lance seemed like he was warming up to him again, so maybe there was hope that Keith didn’t mess up everything with this pregnancy. 

Keith didn’t even make it half way through the night before he woke up in a cold sweat, panicked and feeling like he was back in the ship with the galra searching for him and Steven. As soon as he woke up, he knew he had just had a nightmare of a flashback from when he lost Steven to the galra sword, but he still felt like he just lost another baby. The feeling made him break down and start crying. 

He got up out of bed quickly and ran over to the bathroom, turning on the light and taking off his underwear as he entered. He quickly felt his hands in between his legs to see if their was blood, only taking his hand away to see that there was nothing. It was a false alarm and all in his mind. He sniffled and pulled his pants back up, feeling stupid for panicking but also still feeling scared that there was going to be blood streaming down his leg any second now from yet another miscarriage. 

Keith walked over to the bed, still tired and ready for an attempt to try to fall asleep again until he saw a shadow looming over the room and casting a shape on the other wall. It was just a shadow from a lamp in the bedroom with the bathroom light being cast over it, but in Keith’s eyes, it looked like the silhouette of an intruder. The more he looked at it, the more it looked like the shadow of a galra soldier. 

Keith’s eyes widened and without saying a word or doing anything, he made a run for the door, opening it up quickly and running out. He never stopped until he reached the couch in the living room, shaking Lance awake with tears in his eyes as he whispered, “Lance! There’s a galra in the house! He’s here to kill our baby! Where is your gun?”

Lance woke up with a groan, turning over away from Keith as he muttered out, “Keith it was just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

     “But I saw him! I was awake when I saw him!” Keith cried out, shaking Lance still as he kept checking behind him for the galra. “They found earth… they found us, and they are going to kill me..”

Lance turned around again with a frown, his tired eyes and furrowed brows giving away an uncaring look towards Keith. He sighed and sat up, “Let’s go see the galra, Keith. I’m sure you probably just Shiro getting up to use the restroom and using his hand as a light or something.”

Keith shook his head, “I know Shiro when I see him…”

Lance sighed and stood up, walking over to a cabinet and pulling out a safe with his gun inside. He opened it up with a code both he and Keith knew and held it up for Keith to see, “Show me where you saw the galra.”

     “Promise you will protect me even though you want the baby dead?” Keith stuttered out, holding his hand over his stomach protectively. 

Lance frowned at Keith’s phrasing, just closing his eyes and taking in a slow breath before he replied calmly, “My goal is for you to stay alive, so yes, I’ll protect you.”

Confident enough with that answer, Keith led Lance upstairs to their room to show him the galra, only realizing as soon as he showed Lance the silhouette that it was a shadow from the lamp in the bathroom light. Lance let out a sigh of exhaustion, realizing that this little trip really was a waste of his time. He was about to reprimand Keith for waking him up for nothing until he looked over to see Keith silently crying and looking down at the ground as if he was a kicked puppy. 

He sniffled and stuttered out a quiet apology, “I-I’m sorry for waking you up for something so stupid…. I’m such a-an idiot!”

     “Keith, don’t get so worked up,” Lance sighed, setting his gun down on a table now that the threat of a galra intruder was out of the way. “Just go back to bed now that you know there is nothing to fear.”

     “Can you hug me?” Keith asked, his eyes still filled with tears from being so scared. 

He held out his arms to Lance, making Lance feel too obligated to hug him to turn it down. He couldn’t just refuse the wishes of his pregnant husband. He wanted to make Keith regret ever getting pregnant, but at the same time, he wanted to make sure Keith was happy. The last thing he wanted was to cause the pregnancy to go south for Keith, but… that was actually exactly what he was doing… He wanted to keep Keith safe from the sorrow of a miscarriage and possibly dying if the baby was large enough to have to push out, but he all he was doing was increasing the risk of it happening. He realized that now, staring at Keith’s puffy and red face wet from tears. 

Without another thought, Lance wrapped his arms around Keith protectively and muttered out, “I’m going to do my best to protect you from a miscarriage or a stillbirth with this pregnancy, ok? Since we can’t use a doctor and the team won’t be here until possibly right before you give birth, it will be harder than the other pregnancies we’ve been through, but I promise I’ll try, ok?”

Keith hugged him back, “I’m so sorry for all of this…”

     “It’s fine, Keith,” Lance rubbed his back soothingly, starting to lead him over to the bed. “I have a good feeling about this one.”

He was lying. He had terrible feelings about this pregnancy, but he was going to have to keep that in until something actually happened. He was going to have to keep a close eye on Keith for the next few months too to make sure everything was fine. Even the slightest cold symptom was going to be checked thoroughly as best as Lance could manage without a real doctor around, and he was going to make sure nothing went unmissed. 

The next week went by both easier and harder than Keith and Lance imagined. They chose to keep the pregnancy a secret for now from Lance’s family and Kashi and Cora, not wanting to deal with everyone if a miscarriage happened. They decided they would tell everyone when Keith hit his second month and was showing. 

They went about their regular routine just as before with Lance taking Cora to school, Keith homeschooling Kashi, Lance coming back home with food for Keith, him, and Kashi to eat lunch together, Lance leaving to pick Cora up from school and take her to practice before bringing her back home to eat dinner Keith fixed as a family. Now for the hard part, Keith’s morning sickness was more like all-day-long sickness and it was more severe than anything he had ever experienced in his past pregnancies. He was eating more than he ever ate even with the twins and he was too exhausted to do anything already. 

When Lance questioned him about it at dinner one night while the twins were talking to each other about their favorite show they watched, Keith responded with, “I feel like this kid is growing at hyper speed. I can literally feel everything expanding inside of me as we speak right now. I ate seven full meals today, Lance. Seven! I’m gaining so much weight already… I don’t know what’s going on.”

     “For someone who has been eaten forty-two full meals in total this week - I’ve counted - you still look amazing sweetie,” Lance tried to evade the topic of weight, leaning forward to kiss Keith on the cheek until Keith turned away from him and muttered out, “Tell that to my fatass.”

     “Keith!” Lance reprimanded Keith for cursing in front of the kids, trying hard not to laugh at what he just said.

Keith remained serious and crossed his arms, frowning, “I’ve gained twelve pounds in the last week. Either this baby is going to be huge or it’s all going to my ass.”

Lance wrapped his arms around Keith, kissing him on the cheek as he kept laughing and assured him, “You still have a rockin’ body, baby. In fact, I can see that you might need maternity clothes a little early.”

     “A little early?” Keith groaned, “This is a whole month early! It’s only been two weeks and I’m already finding it hard to zip up my pants.”

Lance laughed a little and held the fabric of Keith’s shirt, starting to lift it up as he said, “I’m sure it’s not that big already. You are just…” he lifted it up and saw Keith’s stomach. It looked like he had already been pregnant for at least a month now, maybe even over a month. What was going on? His baby bump wasn’t big enough to see underneath his shirt, but it was big enough to notice without one already. 

Keith placed his hand over his stomach, “It is growing so fast, I can feel it. It hurts so much…”

     “I’ll look up what helps with that after dinner, and how about tomorrow we go out and buy maternity clothes for you since the baby is growing so fast?” Lance asked, picking up both of their finished plates at the table and taking them over to the kitchen to wash them. 

A new emotion suddenly came over Keith and he followed Lance to the kitchen, wrapping his arms around Lance's lower back and stomach from behind and singing out a flirtatious whine, “Save the dishes for later, and let’s go upstairs to have fun.”

     “Oh no…” Lance muttered out, eyes widening as he looked down at the dish he just placed in the otherwise empty sink. 

Keith felt his heart jump when he saw the fear in Lance’s eyes. He held Lance’s hand and stayed close to him, “Honey, what is it?”

Lance turned to him quickly with wide eyes and mouth slightly ajar as he exclaimed, “My husband has entered the horny stage of his pregnancy! There’s no going back now, all systems are go; he must be tamed immediately!”

     “Stop it!” Keith laughed, playfully shoving Lance before Lance picked him up and started carrying him to the stairs that led to their room. 

He turned to the kids now coloring in their coloring books at the table and called out to them, “You guys can play for fifteen minutes before I come back down to tuck you two in, ok? Papa and daddy have to call uncle Shiro about a mission.”

     “Ok papa,” Cora called out, believing the lie easily because she was too innocent not to. 

Lance turned and carried Keith the rest of the way to the bedroom, only stopping to lay him down on the bed and take off his clothes. Keith took off his own clothes, glad to finally take off his pants after a long day of feeling like he was going to break them if he made one wrong move. He took off his underwear and shirt as well, touching his already growing boner with his fingertips as he watched Lance take off his shirt.  Lance saw what he was doing and quickly reached out to hold Keith’s hands, kissing him and lightly pushing him down on the bed before he said, “Let me do all the work. You’re body is working enough as it is; this is the least I can do.”

Keith smiled and kissed Lance back, edging his hips up towards Lance anyways since he was itching too much for pleasure to care about overworking his body. He ran his fingers lightly through Lance’s hair, wrapping his legs around Lance’s hips and grinding against his length as he moaned out softly and said, “You are helping me out more than you can imagine right now.”

Lance’s bulge against Keith’s groin grew when he said that, followed by Lance groaning out and lowering himself more onto Keith so Keith could be comfortable. He reached over to the drawer and pulled out lube, kissing Keith all over as he prepared both him and himself for what was about to happen.  Lance aligned himself between Keith’s thighs, kissing Keith’s neck to distract him before he pushed himself up into Keith. Keith dug his nails into Lance’s back, scratching him as he moaned out loudly with blind satisfaction. His eyes widened for a moment and he quickly raised himself up to look at Lance’s back, “Shit, you are bleeding!”

     “I’m fine,” Lance assured Keith, telling the truth since in all honesty, he barely even felt Keith’s nails claw their way down his back. He pressed Keith back down again and started thrusting into him slowly for now once more. 

Though Keith still seemed worried about Lance’s back, he went right back to grabbing at him and digging his nails into his skin to take in the size of Lance’s dick inside of him. 

     “Mm,’ Keith bit his lip and furrowed his brows, grinding along with Lance though Lance was doing most of the work. All he could think about right now was this moment, the pleasure in this moment, and how he was with the one he loved most at this very second, and he wouldn’t trade it to be anywhere else. 

     “Faster…” he managed to mutter out. “Touch my stomach, too.”

     “Touch your stomach?” Lance asked, though he bit his tongue, reminding himself that he was supposed to be doing everything Keith wanted right now, no questions asked. 

He reached in between him and Keith and stroked Keith’s stomach lightly, rubbing it soothingly while also thrusting faster into Keith. After a few more minutes, Keith placed his hand on his, moaning and warning him, “Move your hand, I’m about to cum!”

Lance moved his hand, going faster and harder now that he was also about to cum. He heard Keith moan out as his whole body relaxed and a warm liquid marked his and Keith’s stomachs. A few seconds later, Lance finished as well, and he kissed Keith on the lips before pulling out and laying next to him. 

     “Ah, that was long needed…” Keith said breathlessly as he looked up at the ceiling. 

     “But we just had sex last week,” Lance laughed a little, turning his head to look at Keith in his afterglow state. His hair was wet with sweat, sticking messily to his forehead and the pillow. Just seeing him like that made Lance want to take him all over again. He was probably going to do that too if Keith was up for it after he put the twins to bed. 

Keith shook his head in reply to his previous question, still smiling as he muttered out, “I’ve been horny all day. While you were gone today, I had to sneak upstairs away from Kashi to take care of the random urges that came over me. I felt like I was going to explode by the time dinner was finally over.”

    “You are surprisingly very open about being horny,” Lance laughed, snaking his arm around Keith chest in order to pull him in closer. 

Keith rolled his eyes, “I’m pregnant, so it’s not embarrassing. It’s perfectly normal.”

Lance rested his hand on Keith’s stomach, “Yeah, I gotta say, this little one is giving you a hard time, isn’t it? You are constantly hungry, constantly nauseous, constantly peeing, constantly exhausted, and now constantly horny? This pregnancy really is over the top isn’t it?”

     “Because it’s going to be the last one whether or not the baby lives,” Keith answered, getting up out of bed and walking over to their bathroom to grab a robe he could throw on. He didn’t feel like going through the effort of putting on pants at the moment, but he had to put on something if he was going to help out with tucking Kashi and Cora in. “Now come on, let’s go get the twins into bed. I don’t want to be too tired afterwards, cause I’m not finished with you yet tonight.”

Lance grinned and hopped off the bed, getting dressed quickly so he could follow his husband downstairs and help get the kids to bed so they could resume their previous activities. Every night for the next two weeks was the same way with Keith never feeling fully satisfied with how much sex they had and Lance for once wanting to see the day that Keith wasn’t a sex machine. 

Every single day, Keith’s stomach grew bigger and bigger, eventually becoming hard to hide by the end of the two weeks. He and Lance had to go get clothes for him to wear since he couldn’t even fit into his underwear comfortably anymore. Keith wore a baggy jacket Lance had to hide his bump in public and they went shopping, coming home with many maternity clothes that Keith was excited to feel comfortable in and Lance was excited to see on Keith.

     “Woah, you guys were gone for a while just to go shopping?” Pidge asked when the couple entered their house. She was called over to babysit and gladly agreed since Kashi always enjoyed learning about tech even though he couldn’t understand half of the words she said to him. She knew this fact too, but she was sure he would start understanding it all eventually and become her apprentice of sorts. 

Keith took the bags from Lance and quickly stowed them away in the coat closet before Pidge could catch a glimpse of what was in the bags. He then took off his coat, getting too hot to keep it on anymore, and hung it on the door knob to the closet. He sighed and stepped into the room where Pidge was and fell onto the couch in a tired huff, “I’m never leaving the house again. It is way too hot outside and… Lance do we have whipped cream? I want whipped cream!” Keith put his hand on his forehead, “And now I have a migraine…”

     “Keith, are you ok?” Pidge left Kashi by his toys to walk over to the couch and sit on the edge of it to take a closer look at Keith. “You seem… stressed maybe?”

     “Stress is not even the beginning of it.”

Lance walked into the living room with a can of whipped cream and handed it to Keith before sitting next to Pidge, “He just needs to relax. He is worried about the team fighting a new war without him, and then he realized that Cora and Kashi will be in kindergarten at the end of the summer. Time is just an issue for him right now. It goes by too fast.”

Lance was lying about the cause of Keith’s stress, but now that Lance was saying these true things about what was going on, Keith started to gain real stress from it all. He sniffled and teared up when he realized how old Cora and Kashi were getting, “They are going to go to college and leave us, and we aren’t going to have anyone after that!”

     “Oh Gosh, Keith…” Lance couldn’t help but laugh at how dramatic Keith was being. Yes, he felt like Cora and Kashi were growing up way too fast for his comfort, but he still found it hilarious that Keith cried at the smallest things nowaday. 

Pidge felt reasonably uncomfortable now though she patted Keith’s knee awkwardly, muttering out a half thought out reassurance, “There, there, Keith! You and Lance can just have new kids to take care of, and…” she looked down and bit her lip, “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking when I said that… I know you two had troubles with that in the past and aren’t trying anymore.”

Keith poured some whipped cream into his mouth, giving Lance an awkward side glance as if to ask if they could tell her. Lance bit his lip and shrugged. Keith thought that that was Lance’s way of saying that they shouldn’t tell Pidge, but as soon as he resigned to the idea of keeping it a secret longer, Lance suddenly bursted out randomly, “Pidge, can you make anything and do anything if you set your mind to it?”

Pidge’s eyes widened and she tilted her head in confusion at Lance’s question. She shook her head awkwardly and shrugged, “I-I guess? But if this has to do with you and Keith setting your mind to it and somehow getting a baby, I’m definitely not the right person to talk to about that. I don’t even feel comfortable holding hands with anyone yet! I can’t talk about babies! Computers are my babies!”

     “Relax Pidge,” Lance interrupted her, putting his hands on her shoulders before he took a deep breath and let it all out in a sigh. “I was just wondering if you could learn how to help someone give birth without any medical equipment whatsoever and also how to transform an infusion if the person giving birth loses too much blood.”

Pidge was still confused, “...why?...” she turned to Keith and suddenly all of the pieces came together as she realized what was going on. Her eyes widened and she jumped up, “Are you saying?!” she turned to Keith, “Keith! Are you pregnant?”

Keith lifted up his shirt to reveal his baby bump, “I’m not getting fat for nothing.”

Pidge squealed out in joy and rammed into Lance to hug him, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner! He looks like he is going to give birth in like a month! Can I learn how to do all those things in a month?”

     “He is actually only a month along,” Lance assured her. “The baby is huge right now which is why I’m extra worried for him to give birth this time especially if the team doesn't make it back in time. I need help when it happens.”

     “I’ll be here,” Pidge grinned, turning to Keith again and putting her hand on his stomach. “Just wait until the others come back after their mission to see that you guys have a new baby! Please tell me I’m allowed to tell Matt about this? He’s gonna freak!”

Keith and Lance smiled, looking at each other one last time before they nodded their heads in approval. 

     “Of course he can know,” Lance said. “We need all the brains we can get on this.”

Pidge told Matt that night about the news, and Lance decided it was finally time to tell his own family about what was going on. They were all excited since this was the first time they were getting to be present for the news of Keith being pregnant. Keith really didn’t have anyone to tell, so he was happy to be there and see that Lance’s family took it so cheerfully though he didn’t worry they would take it any other way. 

Later on, Keith and Lance sat Kashi and Cora down to talk to them about the news, hoping they would take it well since they had yet to understand what happened to the last baby and how a new one came to be. They weren’t going to explain the truth about either of those things just for the sake of the twin’s innocence, but they were going to do their best to answer any questions Kashi or Cora had. 

Surprisingly though, the twins didn’t have many questions. In fact, they claimed they already knew but they didn’t want to make Lance and Keith feel bad for not hiding a secret very well. Keith and Lance couldn’t stop laughing at how scary smart their kids are but both worried about what other kinds of secrets the kids knew about… Did they act ignorant when Keith and Lance disappeared to go to their bedroom, or did they-? Both of their worries stopped there when they remembered that Kashi and Cora were only four and still thankfully had enough innocence that shielded them from realizing a lot of those kinds of things. 

Pidge and Matt came over more often to come up with ideas on how to make labor for Keith less painful and how to prepare for every scenario that could possibly happen on the night Keith went into labor. They wrote down a list of things to be prepared for such as: Keith having multiple kids, the kid or kids being born prematurely, Keith bleeding out, and so much more that Lance didn’t even want to think about. 

By the time the second month was over, Keith looked like he was ready to give birth any day now. He felt like it too, not wanting to move or do anything except for lay on the couch or bed and hold on to Lance or a pillow for comfort from the pain his stomach was going through from growing so large.  He didn’t have any energy to do anything, so he watched movies and ate the rare foods that didn’t make him throw up. When Lance came home from Cora’s soccer practice that went on even in the summer, he would do as requested by Keith and snuggle him on the couch until it was time for dinner.  

One night when Keith was snuggling Lance and watching a movie the kids wanted to watch, he started to feel like kicks in his stomach. His eyes widened and he grabbed Lance’s hand, “It’s moving!”

     “What?” Lance sat up quickly, putting his hands on Keith’s stomach immediately in order to try to feel it too. “Where? Is it hard? The baby is huge so it should be.”

Keith felt around his stomach to try to find the kicking again. When he felt kicking on the left side of his stomach, he quickly moved Lance’s hand over to that spot, “Right here!” He then felt kicking on his right side at the same time. 

His eyes widened and he stayed completely still, trying to feel if that was just his stomach growling and he mistaked it for a kick. How could the baby be kicking in two completely different places unless…?

     “Lance…” Keith began to speak, feeling another kick on both his right and left side. These were definitely two different babies. 

Lance looked to Keith, smile fading when he saw Keith’s panicked face, “What is wrong, baby?”

Keith shook his head with wide eyes and stuttered out slowly, “T-There might be two in there...”

     “What?” Lance asked, looking down at Keith’s stomach. He laughed a little, “That would explain so much! What makes you realize that now?”

     “They are kicking in two different places,” Keith grinned, happy that Lance was happy about twins. He was worried he would get mad since Keith had complications giving birth to the twins when he had them, but Lance took it very well. 

Lance leaned down and kissed Keith’s stomach, “We are going to have two sets of twins. Isn’t that exciting?”

Keith’s expression softened and he smiled, petting Lance’s hair as Lance kissed his belly and rubbed it soothingly. Things were going to be fine this time around. He didn’t want to jinx it, but he knew that there really were no threats anymore. These babies would be fine and so would he. 

     “Yeah…” Keith muttered out, holding Lance’s hand that was cupping his stomach to feel the babies’ movements. “I’m excited.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!
> 
> Ah... Posting on Sunday's again at last! Now that break is over, I'm far less busy, which is kind of ironic. Thank you so much for all the comments on last chapter. It means the world to me that you guys are still enjoying this and some can even relate. Love you guys! See you next Sunday!


	9. We used to be rivals...

We Used to be Rivals…

     “Lance, Kashi wants to go with you to Cora’s soccer game,” Keith sighed, following Lance to the door with a slow waddle. He was on the second week of his third month now and was bigger than he had ever been before in a pregnancy with stretch marks covering his stomach.  He rested on Lance when he reached him, too tired to hold himself up. Lance held onto him and looked to Kashi who was ready to go with a grin on his face since he was excited to see a real soccer game his sister was in. Lance smiled and rubbed Keith’s back soothingly, “Are you sure you don’t want to keep daddy company, buddy? He’s gonna be all alone and sad and…”

     “I’m not going with you guys,” Keith groaned out, kissing Lance on the cheek. “Sorry Lance, but I can barely walk from the couch to the door. How do you think I’m going to survive a soccer match in the hot sun surrounded by people?”

     “The other soccer moms have been wondering where you’ve been,” Lance muttered out, nuzzling his face against Keith’s neck and placing a kiss on his skin before he continued, “I told them you were having to work weekends now for a project but you were going to be done by next month.”

Keith laughed under his breath, “Did you tell them I’m also going to show up to the next game with two new babies?”

Lance tilted his head side to side in thought, “I’m working on a lie for that. Maybe we adopted? They were left on our doorstep?”

     “I’m secretly an alien that can get pregnant?” Keith tried though he knew Lance would never tell the families on the soccer team about that. Keith laughed a little and patted Lance’s chest, “I’m tired, so I’m going to go lay down. Have fun though and tell everyone I said hi, and I’ll be there next month or maybe even sooner.”

Lance ushered Cora and Kashi out the door, waving to Keith as he said, “I’ll pick up food on the way back so don’t worry about dinner! Pidge will be here soon to keep you company too so just leave the door unlocked.”

     “Alright, alright,” Keith assured Lance that he knew the plan as he started to walk back towards the couch. “Have fun and make sure someone keeps a close watch on Kashi the whole time.”

Keith made sure to call that out to Lance as Lance left just to be safe, but he knew that Kashi and Cora were perfectly safe in Lance’s hands. Sometimes he forgot it because of how goofy Lance was at times, but Lance was one of the defenders of the universe, he was the blue paladin, and he was a very protective and loving father over his children. Keith had nothing to worry about.  He went upstairs to bed since their king sized bed was more comfortable to lay on than a tiny couch. Keith grabbed a body pillow and latched onto it, trying to snuggle away his discomfort from growing so large until he fell asleep. 

Keith woke up hours later to Pidge shaking him awake, “Keith, hey, Lance is on the phone and needs to talk to you.”

Keith let out a groan and waved Pidge off tiredly, “If it is about food, I want a strawberry milkshake and a chocolate milkshake.”

     “No, Keith..” Pidge tried to wake him up again, pressing the phone to his ear. “It’s serious. Lance won’t tell me what is going on, but he needs to talk to you.”

Keith sat up quickly and held the phone up to his ear, “Lance, what is wrong? Are the kids ok?”

     “I…” Keith heard Lance mutter out, sniffling afterwards as he tried to get a grip of his emotions. “I left him on the bleachers and told him to stay, but the moms said they saw him leave with a man in a uniform near the end of the game, and-and!”

     “Kashi?” Keith got up out of bed quickly. “Pidge can you drive me to the soccer field. I need to go there right now,” Keith started to speak into the phone again, “What kind of uniform was it? Is anyone there helping you look? Do you know where he went at least?”

Pidge helped Keith down the stairs, not wanting more than one bad thing to happen tonight. She tried to listen in on the conversation as Lance started explaining the facts he knew to Keith, “They described the uniform, a-and it sounded like a Garrison uniform. What would they want to do with Kashi? What if they found out about us, Keith? I called my mom and she is watching Cora right now, and only my family is here searching now. My cousin that’s a police officer is looking at the security cameras, and I’m looking around the woods, but I’m really scared, Keith. What if-?”

     “Don’t go there,” Keith demanded as he got into the car. “I’ll be there in five minutes just keep searching, and I’ll join you.”

Keith hung up, unable to talk anymore about what was going on. He couldn’t believe that this was happening. What if they never found Kashi? What if he was dead when they found him? What if he was hurt? Lance said the guy that took him was wearing a Garrison uniform, and Keith swore to himself that if that person even laid a hand on Kashi, he was going to release the wrath of Voltron on the whole Garrison campus.

     “Keith…” Pidge started, already almost at the park and driving as fast as the speed limit would allow. She looked at Keith for a brief second and saw tears falling from his eyes. She looked towards the road again and continued to speak in a cautious tone, “You guys will find him. And if you don’t, Matt and I got this. I’ll call him as soon as you guys park. He will have every security camera within a fifty mile radius, and-!”

     “You think he’s already taken Kashi that far away?” Keith sniffled, looking out the window at the park as they pulled up. “Do you think Kashi might already be dead?... I told myself when they were born that they would die eventually even when they were older, but right now, it just seems… it seems so unreal… For a second there, I thought that Cora and Kashi were invincible now that they were growing up and becoming their own little person. But I’m wrong, aren’t I?”

Pidge shook her head, biting her lip as she pulled into a parking space right next to the soccer field and near the woods where Lance was, “No one is invincible. But some people are safer than others because they have a team behind them that will fight for them and find them no matter what,” she unlocked the car doors and turned to Keith with a grin, “Kashi has that.”

Keith nodded his head and smiled at the reassurance, getting out of the car and waddling towards the woods with Pidge following close behind him. Pidge was right, Kashi had a big family of people both on Earth and in space that would kill anyone and everyone to protect him and Cora. They were going to do just that too if it came down to that to save him. Keith was not going to lose another child; especially Kashi.  Pidge turned on a flashlight and called Matt as she and Keith walked through the woods in search of Lance and Kashi.

     “Lance!!” Keith shouted out, cupping his hands over his mouth for a brief second before quickly moving them back to his stomach. He was growing tired way too fast. Of course this wasn’t good for the baby or babies, but Kashi was too important to not look for just because he was tired or worried about the health of the kids inside him that weren’t even born yet. 

     “Keith, I’m over here!” he heard Lance shout out from a ways away. It was a short enough distance for Keith to try to run to though. 

He ran over to where he now saw Lance’s phone flashlight in the darkness, not stopping until he reached Lance. He practically rammed into him, his breath heavy and every muscle feeling overworked when he finally fell into his hold. Tears were falling from his eyes now that he was finally in Lance’s arms and the situation was becoming all too real. He sniffled and cried out, “We are going to find him, ok? I’m going to kill the bastard that took him too! I’m going to make him regret ever being-!”

     “He’s right here, Keith,” Lance interrupted him, ushering Kashi to show himself to Keith. 

Kashi seemed a bit nervous but nonetheless calm and… unharmed. Keith’s eyes widened when he saw him, and he reached down to pick him up - only to put him back down again when the weight of Kashi proved too much on his body right now. He just held onto Lance and looked down at Kashi, “Where did you go? Are you hurt? Who took you?”

     “I’m not hurt daddy. Are you mad at me for going off with the man?” Kashi sniffled, looking down at the ground in shame. 

Keith shook his head quickly, “No…”  he leaned down as far as he could to peer at Kashi closer through the darkness, “No, I’m mad at the man for taking you without our permission. You need to know that you can’t just follow anyone without asking me or papa first, ok?”

Kashi nodded his head, “Ok…”

     “Good,” Keith sighed, looking to Lance. “Was the man here when you found Kashi or was Kashi alone?”

     “He was alone,” Lance answered. “I was about to call you to tell you I found him, but I heard you call my name before I got the chance.”

Lance bent down to pick up Kashi, “We should get out of these woods just in case the man comes back. I don’t want to take any risks with you and Kashi here.”

     “Hey what about me?” Pidge tried to joke to make the situation lighter. 

     “You’d kill that Garrison guy before he even had the chance to pull his weapon out,” Lance laughed, making a note to definitely keep Pidge and Matt close just until the threat of the Garrison man was gone and Keith wasn’t pregnant and defenseless anymore. 

They walked back to the open area of the field before Keith finally asked Kashi, “Did the man do anything to you, Kashi? Did he say anything?”

     “Keith…” Lance sighed, not wanting to get mad at him for asking Kashi reasonable questions, but also wanting him to understand that Kashi might not want to open up yet. 

Kashi was surprisingly open about everything though and just shrugged, answering calmly, “The man wanted to know your names. Then he left me in the woods and I was lost until you found me.”

     “The Garrison wants to know our names…” Lance muttered out, eyes widening. “They are on to us. Kashi, what did you tell him?”

     “Your names are daddy and papa,” Kashi replied, looking up to Lance. 

Lance and Keith let out sighs of relief at the fact that those really were the names Kashi knew them by. They were both thankful they were in the clear until Kashi continued to speak, “But the man asked for your real names so I told him Keith and Lance.”

     “Shit….” Pidge sighed out, not caring about Kashi being there anymore. She turned to Keith and Lance, “What are you going to do if they show up at your house and try to take you in?”

Lance bit his lip and look down, “We won’t be there, I guess. I’m not messing with the Garrison. After seeing what they did to Shiro when they brought him back from the Kerberos mission? Nuh-uh. No way am I putting my family through that.”

Kashi sniffled and wrapped his arms around Lance neck, “Did I do something bad?”

     “No, sweetheart,” Lance assured him, rubbing his back and glancing at Keith. “You did a great job, Kashi. You were very brave and I am so proud of you.”

     “Me too, baby,” Keith muttered out, pressing a hand on Kashi's head as the other rested protectively around his stomach. “Everything is going to be fine now that you are here with us.”

They met up with Lance’s family and called off the search that had already been sent out throughout the town. Lance and Keith thanked everyone that offered to help with finding Kashi, and they took Cora and Kashi home since it was a late night already. Pidge offered to go home with them and guard them with the help of Matt, but Lance let her go back home, reminding her that she would be needed for a long while later on when Keith was ready to give birth.  When they got home, Lance took Kashi and Cora to bed while Keith went upstairs to immediately fall asleep. He was exhausted both emotionally and psychically and felt like he could probably go into a deep sleep for many days or even weeks if he needed to to get back to normal. He overworked himself today… That was probably a mistake. 

Keith started feeling a pain in his lower back area. 

That was definitely a huge mistake. 

His eyes widened and he sat up, feeling a cramp coming on. He started to get out of bed as he yelled for Lance, “Lance! We need Pidge right now!”

Lance came running into the room seconds later in a rush, “What?! What is going on?”

Keith held onto the bed post with one hand and his stomach with the other, breathing heavily as he answered in low and shallow breaths, “I feel cramping…. I-It hurts!”

He groaned out in pain once more and sat down on the bed again, unable to hold himself up anymore. He gripped onto the sheets and cried out, “I-It’s a contraction! It’s not a miscarriage, I can feel it, but why is it so,” he cried out in pain again, “It’s too early to go into labor!”

     “Keith lay down, lay down,” Lance instructed, helping Keith back onto the bed before he pulled out his phone and called Pidge, “Pidge. We need you and Matt over here as soon as possible. We think Keith is going into labor.”

     “What?” Pidge squeaked out, realizing how unprepared she was for this. She turned to Matt who was on his bed in their apartment working on his computer, and she called out to him, “Matt, we need to go to Keith and Lance’s house quickly! They are having the baby early.”

Matt shut his laptop quickly and hurried over to the phone, “I read about premature labor, I got this Pidge.”

     “Ok good, I’ll get everything ready while you talk to them,” Pidge called out as she rushed over to the things they made to prepare for Keith giving birth. 

Matt sat on the edge of Pidge’s bed now and spoke to Lance calmly though he was excited to help Keith give birth, “Ok, so we may not actually have to help you give birth yet. Premature labor can be stopped, so I want you to do exactly what I tell you while we are on our way ok?”

Lance looked to Keith and nodded his head, “Ok. He is laying down right now. What else should we do?”

     “Make him get up again,” Matt requested, looking at his notes he wrote down on what do if this situation occurred, “It isn’t good for him to be flat on his back because the contractions will only increase. I want you to take him to the kitchen, let him walk around, and make him drink several glasses of water. He should also go to the bathroom if he needs to; that helps.”

     “Ok,” Lance nodded his head, quickly helping Keith up without an explanation. 

     “Lance, I don’t want to get up,” Keith gripped onto his shirt over his stomach, wincing as he sat up and felt uncomfortable again. “It hurts!”

Lance still made Keith get up anyways, “Matt is telling me things to make you do to make sure you don’t give labor too early. It may hurt, but at least you won’t give birth tonight if you do this, right?”

     “There is still a possibility, but-!” Matt tried to say, but Lance interrupted him. 

     “Let’s hope that possibility is very slim. Is there anything else?”

Pidge motioned for Matt to follow her out to the car, so he quickly got up and followed her as he said to Lance, “Drink water, go to the restroom, walk around or lay on side, and blood is fine. It is normal so don’t freak out. Just make sure you do these things until Pidge and I get there, alright?”

     “Alright, thank you,” Lance quickly said before hanging up. He shoved his phone in his pocket and helped Keith down the stairs and to the kitchen quickly, wasting no time to pull out a glass and fill it up with water. 

He handed it to Keith, “Drink several of these. Tell me when you feel a contraction and tell me if you need to go to the restroom.”

     “I need to go now,” Keith muttered, drinking the whole glass of water in the a matter of seconds as if it was a potion to make his pain go away. He set it down on the table and waddled to the restroom with Lance following close behind him.  Lance watched as Keith sat down on the toilet and leaned over, wincing as another contraction hit. Keith bit his trembling lip and sniffled, “What if they are born too early and don’t survive.”

     “Don’t think like that,” Lance demanded, stepping forward to rest his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “These have more of a chance to live than the twins did, ok?”

     “I know, but…” Keith got up and his gaze fell towards the toilet. His breath hitched and he stepped back, covering his mouth in surprise as tears already started to fill his eyes, “It is a miscarriage,” he turned to Lance with wide eyes and screamed out, “It’s a miscarriage! There is blood!”

Lance’s eyes widened and he quickly flushed the toilet, wrapping Keith up in his arms as he assured him, “Matt told me blood was normal for premature labor. You are still fine, Keith, ok? Just relax and let’s go to the kitchen to drink more water.”

Keith did as Lance requested for the next five minutes until Pidge and Matt showed up. When they got there though, Keith had mostly calmed down, and he wasn’t having contractions anymore. It was a false alarm. He finally sat down on the couch, holding Lance’s hand tightly as  he had to emotionally calm down from the scare that just happened. 

     “Is this going to happen every day until I actually give birth?” Keith asked, sniffling and looking down at his stomach. “This is going to suck so much…”

Matt shook his head and looked down at his notes with a pencil balancing between his lips and his nose like a makeshift mustache, “Not if you are put on bedrest. I have a theory that you might be pregnant with more than one baby. You have the symptoms, you are big enough, and now this?”

     “Oh yeah, we felt two kicks in two different places a few weeks ago, so we are pretty sure they are twins,” Lance answered, wrapping his arm around Keith though Keith shoved him off immediately due to being uncomfortable with any touch except for hand holding. 

     “You should have told me and Pidge!” Matt exclaimed, hastily writing down the fact that there were two kicks in different parts of Keith’s stomach. “That is a definite indication of multiple babies inside of him!”

     “Well we weren’t sure-!” Keith started to say, but Pidge and Matt interrupted him saying simultaneously, “It is better to be over prepared than under prepared.”

Matt stood up, “Lucky for you, we prepared for twins just in case. Looks like we are going to have to prepare for triplets now too.”

     “Woah, woah, we are not having triplets!” Lance squeaked out, thinking of the image of him and Keith trying to juggle triplets around along with Cora and Kashi. 

Pidge shook her head and crossed her arms, “You don’t decide that. But it’s really unlikely you guys will have triplets so don’t worry.”

Lance turned to Keith with a horrified look cast upon his expression, “Well now, I’m worried!” he turned to Matt, “I’m fine with the the amount of kids that will be in our house if we have triplets, sure, but I’m worried about Keith giving birth. He could barely take the twins, but triplets? That’s way too risky.”

     “He will be fine,” Pidge waved him off. “He has us!”

     “That’s right,” Matt grinned. “Not to jinx it or anything, but Keith and however many kids he is carrying in there are going to be perfectly safe!”

Lance sighed and kissed Keith on the cheek, “I hope so… He’s my whole world. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Keith grinned, a blush spreading across his face before he shoved Lance away lightly, “Lance, you are so sappy!”

     “Well I love you!” Lance kissed Keith again. 

Keith kissed back, laughing now as he replied, “I love you too!”

     “You do?” 

     “Yes I do!” Keith kissed Lance’s neck, “You aren’t just my whole world, you are my whole universe.”

    “Now that is sappy,” Lance laughed, pressing Keith down on the couch to kiss him, too swept up in the passionate moment to notice Matt and Pidge awkwardly stepping back to leave and let them enjoy their moment. 

Lance didn’t even notice they were gone until tomorrow morning when he woke up with Keith on the couch spooning him and rubbing his stomach. He sat up a bit and looked around him at the living area that was disheveled a bit from the premature labor scare. He guessed that Pidge and Matt left after he and Keith got caught up with each other, though nothing really happened after that. All they did after Matt and Pidge left was make out for a while until that turned into snuggling and spooning until they both eventually fell asleep. 

Keith woke up soon after Lance, yawning as he stretched his arms out and reached for Lance. Lance took his hands into his own and kissed Keith’s knuckles, smiling and greeting him, “Good morning, baby. Are you feeling better?”

     “Better than ever,” Keith smiled, kissing Lance on the cheek as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He grunted at the effort it took to move around, but he was happy nonetheless, “Will you be able to stay home today? I want to snuggle with you all day long,” he grinned and leaned over to cuddle Lance for a few more seconds. 

Lance kissed Keith on the cheek again, loving this side of him that craved attention in the cutest ways, “I have soccer practice with Cora for just an hour this morning, but I’m yours for the rest of the day, ok?” Lance looked at his watched and stood up quickly, “Actually, practice is in thirty minutes. I need to wake up Cora and rush there! The coach can’t be late!”

Keith laughed under his breath and laid down, “Well I’ll just fall asleep again. Kashi will probably wake me up in thirty minutes wanting breakfast, so I might as well get it now.”

     “Ok, baby,” Lance placed a kiss on Keith’s forehead as Keith shut his eyes to try to fall asleep again. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Keith fell asleep and Lance left with Cora to go to practice. Kashi did wake up and go downstairs, but when he found Keith, he decided to join him on the couch instead of wake him up to make food. The two of them slept for the next half hour holding each other tight until the doorbell rang and Keith was woken up. 

He turned to the door and tilted his head in confusion, “Who could that possibly be?”

     “Aunt Pidge and Uncle Matt?” Kashi answered in the form of a question, sitting up to try to peer around the corner at the door. He started to get up, calling out to Keith, “Daddy, I’ll open the door!”

Keith stood up slowly, holding his stomach as he followed Kashi to the door, “You can’t even reach the door, sweetie. Plus, what if it’s-!”

     “It’s the man!” Kashi exclaimed, stopping in his tracks and turning to Keith. “I don’t want to see him.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he stepped back as the man knocked on the door this time instead of ringing the doorbell. Keith held his stomach and looked to Kashi with wide eyes, “Kashi, I need you to find a hiding spot that is so good, no one will be able to find you in it, ok?”

     “Behind the coats in my closet?” Kashi asked, starting to become nervous with the man being at the door. 

Keith nodded his head and ushered Kashi on his way, “I want you to hide wherever you can’t be seen at all even if people search hard for you, and I don’t want you to come out until I say so or papa comes home and calls your name. Do you understand?”

Kashi nodded his head, “Will you hide too?”

     “Yes, but you need to tell papa that someone from the Garrison came,” Keith bent down and kissed Kashi on the forehead. “I love you, Kashi. Don’t you forget that.”

     “I love you too daddy!” Kashi grinned and kissed Keith back on the cheek before running away to go hide. 

When he was sure Kashi had had enough time to thoroughly hide, Keith turned back to the door and called out, “Lance is coming soon! It would be in your best interest to leave us alone.”

     “I’m with the Garrison, Keith,” the man called out from the other side of the door. “I just want to ask you a few questions about where you and Lance McClaine have been during your disappearance.”

Keith stepped closer to the door, “We went on a long trip overseas. Anymore questions?”

     “So much more…” the man answered, clicking a pen as he talked. “Like about your pregnancy - your current and possibly multiple to be exact - the whereabouts of Takashi Shirogane, the appearance of a blue lion before you disappeared with the rest of your group, and the possibility of you, Keith Kogane, being an alien.”

Keith let out a fake laugh and shook his head, “It’s Keith McClaine now, and you sound crazy thinking I’m an alien? Those aren’t real! I left all that conspiracy crap behind years ago and the Garrison should too, honestly.”

     “Mr. ...McClaine… I find it in your best interest to open the door for me right now. It is either we talk peacefully, or I force you to go to the facility with me to answer your questions there.”

Keith shook his head, reaching for his phone to text Lance what was going on. He talked to the guy to keep him calm, “I’m not pregnant, I’m just getting fat, so thanks for that accusation. Kashi and Cora were adopted from… Cuba. They have a bit of Japanese in them, so Lance and I fell in love with them immediately. They were twins that were a bit of both of us which is cool, you know?”

All while he was trying to buy himself time, he was texting Lance, ‘Someone from the Garrison is paying us a visit at the moment. He is on the other side of the door and won’t leave. Kashi is hiding upstairs in his closet. Please get him before you do anything else.’

The man started banging on the glass of the door, “We are on a tight schedule according to your possible pregnancy. According to galra pregnancy info we have gained, you are due to give birth any day now.”

     “What? Why do you care about me giving birth?” Keith’s eyes widened and he reached into the cabinet drawer to pull out his knife he always kept there just for moments such as this one. 

The man broke the glass with the handle of his gun, reaching over to unlock the door and open it as he said, “You are valuable research material the Garrison can use. As punishment for stealing Garrison property, Takashi Shirogane, you will comply without a choice.”

     “Comply my ass!” Keith held up his knife as the man walked into the house. “I’m not losing another baby!”

The man held out a syringe, talking into a radio as he stepped closer to Keith, “Target is not complying as expected. I will take it by force.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he moved forward to attack the man with the knife only until the man held a gun up to his stomach and tilted his head with a smile, “I could shoot your stomach and take you in for dissection. That’s what we would love to use you for… But I could also just take you in and ask you some questions, and everyone will be safe.”

The man had a gun… Keith had a knife… He was helpless.

Keith resigned to the situation and lowered his knife, unable to do anything to save himself being this big and protecting multiple babies right now. He looked to the floor, “Will I get to go home again after I answer questions?”

The man shook his head, “I cannot promise anything.”

Keith bit his lip and nodded his head in understanding. He had very slim chances of seeing Lance again if he was taken in. But if he didn’t comply right now, he would be shot and have no chance at all of seeing Lance again. He had to choose the lesser evil… Lance could always go to the Garrison and save him, right? He was strong! He was a paladin of Voltron. If Keith had Lance to save him then there was nothing to worry about. He just had to keep himself and the babies safe for now. 

     “I’ll go with you,” Keith muttered out, “Only if you don’t mess with my family at all after I’m gone. I want them all safe; that’s why I’m doing this.”

The man grabbed Keith’s hands and cuffed them together, “We just want you.”

The man brought Keith out to his car and stuffed him in the back before driving him to the Garrison which was an hour long ride. The whole time, Keith’s nerves were taking him over, making him completely unresponsive to anything until he was thrown into a completely white cell with just one bed, a toilet, and a table inside it.  He turned to the entrance of the cell where a new guard from the Garrison was waiting. He sat on the bed and held his stomach to comfort himself as he spoke, “Is a cell really necessary? I can’t do anything when pregnant.”

     “You need somewhere to stay while you are with us,” a commander spoke, walking into the room that was in front of Keith’s cell. He smiled when he saw Keith and continued to speak, “We will run a few tests on you, keep you until you give birth, and take the children of course. We can’t have aliens living on Earth, I hope you understand.”

     “But I’m not an alien-!” Keith tried to shout, but the man interrupted him. 

     “One of my men that took your kid into the woods yesterday got a piece of his DNA. We tested it, and there are traces of Galra in his blood. You do know you are part Galra, right?”

Keith looked down, sniffling and nodding his head, “Of course I know what I am… But I swear, I haven’t even changed my form since I’ve gotten here! My family and I are perfetly safe to let live on Earth! My husband and I have lived here most of our lives and my kids love it here!”

     “They grew up around a war, didn’t they?” the commander asked, putting his hands behind his back. The question was rhetorical so he didn’t give Keith a chance to answer before he continued to speak, “Kids who are part alien and grew up in an alien war are not safe enough to be allowed to live on Earth. You should know this - You went to the Garrison.”

     “Don’t you dare hurt them!” Keith snapped, standing up. “I swear, if you lay so much as a finger on one of my kids, I will personally kill you myself!”

     “You couldn’t even take down one of my men with a gun,” the commander smiled. “Do you think you can take down a whole unit of soldiers if you try to fight against this?”

     “I’m going to kill you!”

The commander shook his head and grinned, starting to walk away, “You took away our research once when you stole that Takashi Shirogane from us. What goes around is finally coming back to you.”

Before Keith could scream at him for even thinking about hurting his family, the door shut and the commander was gone. 

Two more weeks went by and Keith was still held in the cell, forced to do nothing but lay down, eat the disgusting food they gave him, and wait for Lance to someday save him from the Hell he was living it in. It wasn’t as bad as being in Zarkon’s prison, but it was pretty close.  Especially when the guards doing the graveyard shift and watching him at night turned off the security cameras and attacked Keith in his sleep, holding him down and using him to pass the time in ways he hoped he would someday be able to block out. Keith would scream and call out for help to anyone that could possibly hear him, but he was never saved in time. He was starting to believe he would never be saved at all. 

One night, when two older looking soldiers were guarding him, Keith started to feel pains in his stomach. He didn’t fear a miscarriage; he knew what this was. He was going to be giving birth soon. The two older men were soldiers that had hurt him last week, but they seemed to be doing just their jobs tonight and standing outside of Keith’s cell. 

Keith tried to keep his pain in, biting his lip to the point of drawing blood so he wouldn’t cry out in pain as he felt a contraction take place inside him. He curled up in his bed and held his stomach, hoping he could just give birth to the babies safely without anyone noticing what was going on. He couldn’t have them taken away from him. 

     “Hey, do you really think there is someone attacking right now?” Keith heard one of the guards whisper, catching his attention.

His breathing was pained and heavy, but he managed to keep it down as he tried to listen to more of the guards’ conversation.

The other guard replied to the question, “Commander doesn’t usually lie about these kinds of things… But the flying lion part is a bit hard to believe.”

     “Yeah, but there were reports of a flying lion around this area eight years ago. It’s like a robot and blue, but it is shaped like a cat thing,” the other guard said, leaning against the glass. 

Keith got up quietly, holding his stomach as he creeped over to where the guards were. Was Voltron attacking this base? If this was true, he could just get out of this cell and meet them outside and finally be free! He would be safe. The babies would be safe. Now was the time to fight with all he had, because it was his one chance to get out and survive the escape.  Keith stood behind the glass right behind the soldier, closing his eyes as he changed the form of his hand into a galra hand. He made sure to control it this time and not let it reach past his elbow as he used his claws to break the glass. 

As soon as the glass broke, Keith reached his galra hand into the new opening and grabbed the two soldiers heads, knocking them together as hard as he could before letting them fall to the floor. Without any hesitation at all, he broke more of the glass until he could get through and leave the cell. He stepped out and picked up on of the soldier’s guns, ready to leave this Hell hole. 

Keith sneaked through the hallways that sounded silent, not wanting to risk running into a whole troop of soldiers. He was lucky it was night, or else he would have had to deal with a whole lot more people than just two soldiers on watch and the rare soldier still lurking around the hallways at this time of night.  Keith made sure to be quick, only stopping when he had another contraction. He grabbed onto the wall and crouched behind a beam, holding his stomach and breathing deep and slow to get over it without crying out in pain or making any noises that would alert any possible nearby guards. Keith stayed kneeling behind the beam for a few minutes until he heard a familiar voice. It was Lance’s voice. He was speaking into his helmet as he said, “Pidge, tell me where Keith’s cell is. It’s completely empty right now due to you guys attacking, but I need to be quick.”

     “Lance…” Keith whispered to himself in realization of who was speaking. Despite having a contraction, he got up quickly and called out to him, “Lance! I’m over here!”

Lance looked over to Keith and his eyes widened. He ran over to the Keith and quickly held him up so he wouldn’t have to overwork himself, “Keith, I’m so sorry I took so long. Are you alright? Are the babies safe?”

     “They are about to come out,” Keith grunted, holding onto his stomach as another contraction hit him. They were starting to happen closer and closer together now. He cried out in pain and gripped onto Lance, stuffing his mouth against Lance’s shoulder so his sounds would come out muffled, “Get me out of here. I can’t have the babies in this place.”

     “Ok, we are going to the castle,” Lance picked Keith up and held him bridal style as he spoke into his helmet. “Keith hasn’t given birth yet. We are going to the castle right now. Which is the safest way out?”

     “There are woods behind the facility. We are holding everyone off out front, but you can take Keith through those woods and I’ll be there by then with the green lion to get you,” Pidge answered, having a hard time speaking while fighting a battle she hadn’t fought in a while. 

Lance looked down at Keith and started running out towards the back door of the Garrison center, “Yeah, we have a problem. Keith is in labor right now, and his contractions are seconds apart. He’s not going to make it.”

     “Use your jetpack!” Hunk responded through the helmet. “I’ll come and pick you guys up if you don’t make it in time, but try to get him far enough away from the facility before this whole thing gets out of hand.”

Lance did as Hunk said, running out of the back of the facility and turning on his air blasters to move through the woods faster, holding Keith close to his chest. Keith gripped onto Lance, hiding his face in Lance chest as he yelled out in pain from the contractions getting more and more painful. 

     “L-Lance, you have to put me down! I can’t do this in the air,” Keith cried, tears falling down his face. “Lance we can have Hunk pick us up. Just land. I need to lay down, I need to-! Ah!” Keith gripped onto Lance’s suit, forcing his jetpack to turn off so they would land. 

     “Keith, don’t mess with my suit while we are in the air!” Lance turned them back on again quickly, trying to fly as fast as he could towards the end of the woods. 

A liquid was dripping from Keith’s hospital pants from his water breaking moments ago. His contractions were no longer separated by minutes or seconds. They were all now coming at him with one big strike of pain that wasn’t going away. He tried to push himself off of Lance, screaming at him, “Land now and have Hunk come pick us up! I probably won’t even give birth by the time he gets to us, so just land and let me lay down!”

Lance started heading down to an opening in the woods, “Fine, I’m giving you two minutes. Hunk, start heading towards us right now!”

There was no answer, but Lance assumed Hunk would respond back in a moment or at least one person on the team would. He landed and laid Keith down on the ground, propping his upper body up on a tree, so he could have some help from gravity to get the babies out.  Keith took off his pants and underwear, tossing them aside quickly before he spread his legs and positioned himself to give birth easier.  He reached his hand out to Lance and sniffled, “Hold my hand. This sucks that I’m giving birth in the woods with no one to help me out, but at least our babies made it this far, right?”

     “I’ll help you for now, but you will have Coran and Allura soon, ok? Matt and Pidge should be here too if they’ll just listen to their helmet to what is going on right now,” Lance grit his teeth. 

He position himself in front of Keith and in between his legs, looking down to see if Keith was close to actually pushing the first baby out any time soon. When Keith screamed out in pain and held his stomach again, Lance knew that it was going to be happening any second now.  He bit his lip and tried not to feel sick when he saw the head of the baby that was already starting to come out. Keith was sobbing now, unable to quietly deal with the pains of labor anymore. He was sweating all over, tears making his cheeks red and raw though he could only focus on the baby coming out of him and his husband in front of him, helping him as much as he could. 

     “Y-You have to pull it out when I push it out far enough!” Keith shouted right before screaming out again and pushing as hard as he could. He gripped onto Lance’s hand tightly and didn’t stop pushing until Lance was able to grab the baby and pull it out. 

     “One down!” Lance exclaimed, pulling the baby out and staring down at it. He examined it for a few seconds before he turned to Keith and smiled, “Well we have ourselves a baby girl.”

     “We do?” Keith smiled, relaxing for a moment. He leaned forward to look closer at the baby in the dim light of the night sky. “Can I see her? Is she breathing?”

He heard a cry that answered his question. He let out a sigh of relief and laid his head back, “Thank God… Where is Hunk now? I’ll…” he bit his lip as he felt another contraction. “Set her down, there’s another one coming.”

Lance shook his head and set down their daughter quickly, “Keith, we can’t handle two on our own. We are lucky we could handle one! Wait for Hunk or Pidge.”

Keith shook his head and got ready to start pushing again, “It’s coming whether you like it or not. Pull it out when you can,” Keith cut off his own sentence, yelling out in pain as he pushed as hard as he could. 

Lance hated having to watch Keith being in such a dangerous situation of giving birth in the middle of the woods with no one around, but he had to get through it because he had the easiest part. He just needed to make giving birth easier for Keith by pulling out the baby as soon as he could. 

He saw a head starting to come out again, faster this time now that Keith was pushing and refusing to stop. 

      “Keith, you can take a breath in between pushes,” Lance reminded Keith, putting his fingers around the crown of the baby’s head. “You need to save energy for yourself.”

He pulled the baby out only a few seconds after though, so his advice wasn’t needed anymore. He lifted the baby up as its soft cry joined its sister’s in the air around them. Keith let out another sigh of relief and exhaustion, happy that the second baby was also alive. 

     “Two daughters,” Lance grinned, setting her down next to her sister. “I can already tell that they are going to be a handful.”

     “Kashi is going to be disappointed,” Keith laughed, rolling over and getting up, careful of the umbilical cords still connecting him and the babies. He crawled over to Lance and collapsed into his hold, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and straddling his hips as he sat in his lap. 

He started to cry, in too much pain to pretend like that labor was nothing. Lance wrapped his arms around Keith and rubbed soothing circles into his back, talking into his helmet again, “You guys better get here very soon or else I’m gonna give you guys a reason to have to form Voltron again.”

Keith laughed a little, sniffling as he muttered out, “I’ll personally stab each of them and leave them alone in the woods just so they know at least half of what I feel like right now.”

Keith’s grip on Lance grew tighter and he started to panic, “Lance… Lance!” 

     “What is it?” Lance held Keith up straight a bit so he could try to check out what is going on. 

Keith let his head fall back as he started sobbing and shaking his head, “I-I think there is a-another one. I can’t do another one! It hurts too much! It hurts t-too m-much…”

He leaned over and threw up off to the side, screaming out in pain as he pushed out another baby, holding his hand under his groin to pull it out himself. He buried his face into Lance’s shoulder and screamed into it, pulling the baby out as fast as he could until it was finally out and in his hands.  His whole body was shaking as he lifted up the baby in between him and Lance. He smiled through his teary eyes and puffy cheeks and said, “Looks like Kashi is going to have a little brother after all.”

The baby boy was quieter than his two sisters, showing signs of life only by reaching up towards Keith and giggling… just like what Steven did. Keith tilted his head and smiled, letting the baby grab his finger and gripping onto it with his tiny hands. Keith sniffled and set him aside next to his sisters so he could lean forward onto Lance and rest. 

His breathing was heavy and labored and he was feeling dizzy, knowing exactly where this was going though he didn’t have the heart to tell Lance. He held on tightly to Lance and muttered out weakly, “Don’t you find it funny how we used to be rivals?...” he laughed a little, “You used to hate me.”

     “I never hated you,” Lance awkwardly whined out, hugging Keith back and looking over at their triplets on the ground next to them. They didn’t have names yet, but they would get to that later. 

     “You definitely hated me,” Keith argued with Lance, laughing as he kissed Lance on the cheek and continued to speak, “But somehow we ended up falling in love with each other… and now we are here, married with five kids now.”

Lance rocked Keith a bit, swaying as he held onto him in thankfulness for him living through a triplet birth, “I wouldn’t have wanted it any different. I love you more than I will ever be able to show you.”

     “You’ve shown me over and over again,” Keith bit his lip, feeling a discomfort in his lower stomach region. He spread his legs a bit more and laughed to himself, “Lance… You are going to hate me so much for this.”

     “What is it?”

Keith shut his eyes, not having enough strength to keep them open, “There’s another baby coming.”

     “What.”

Keith nodded his head and gripped on to Lance’s shoulders, pushing as he grunted out, “Pull it out for me and set it by its siblings.”

Lance spoke into his helmet, “Where are you guys!”

     “You guys might have lost connection,” Keith guessed, kissing Lance on the neck before wincing and pushing harder. “Pidge will fix it and you can tell them where you and the babies are.”

This last baby wasn’t hard to push out, it being the smallest out of the four. Lance pulled it out quickly and made a note that it was a boy before setting it down on the ground and picking Keith up off of him so he could close his legs and attempt to keep any blood from coming out, “Keith talk to me.”

Keith was drifting in and out of consciousness now, his own pain keeping him awake for now. He nodded his head slowly and held Lance’s hand, “We could name one of the girls Ella like Cinderella? The kids love that story so much, they would love the name. The other one can be named Lyra because that was the constellation we looked at on our first date… The two boys can be… Dylan and Aiden? Those names technically mean water and fire which is us.”

     “Which one is which though?” Lance asked, not really caring about naming the babies right now but needing to ask questions like these for Keith to answer so he could stay awake. 

Keith shrugged, “You can choose.. You can change the names entirely, I’m just giving suggestions.”

     “Keith, I’m going to fly us the rest of the way to the ship.”

Keith smiled and reached up to caress Lance’s cheek softly with his hand, tear falling from his eyes as he whispered, “We both know I’m not going to make it past the next two minutes… Why waste the moment by flying? Just stay here and talk to me.”

Lance shook his head and bit his lip, tears filling his eyes as he touched his hand to Keith’s hand and cried, “Keith, you aren’t going to die. You are going to live, ok? You can’t just leave me with six kids and expect me to be ok with that.”

     “I love you, Lance,” Keith sniffled, turning to the four babies beside him. “I love our new babies too. You need to take care of them. You also need to tell Kashi and Cora that I,” his voice broke and he started to cry, unable to stay strong even though he wasn’t even the one being left behind, “I love them both..so much. Can you tell them that? They won’t understand why I’m gone, but that’s ok for now. Let them think I’m on a mission - in fact, you can all pretend I’m on a very long mission, ok?”

Lance let out a sob and hugged Keith, “You aren’t going to leave me! You can’t leave me..  I don’t know what I’ll do with myself if you aren’t here with me!”

Keith kissed Lance on the lips, feeling his strength leaving him at a rapid pace. He was growing colder and colder by the second, “I love you, Lance… I…. I…” 

A few seconds passed and Keith never finished his sentence. Lance had his head buried into Keith’s chest, waiting for his next words to come, but they never did. 

     “I what?” Lance begged for an answer. He begged for any kind of sound to come from Keith. His eyes widened and he looked up, “I what?!” 

Fat tears fell from his eyes and he punched the ground with his fists, screaming out at Keith, “I fucking told you not to get pregnant! You told me everything would be fine, and I-I believed you! I’m such an idiot for believing you!”

He let out a sob and collapsed onto Keith again, crying into his shirt as he shouted out more, “I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I-!” He broke off into a cry again, holding onto Keith and begging him to come back to life. “I can’t do this without you… I promise I’ll never get mad or do anything stupid ever again if you just come back to me. I love you… I-I love you so much…”

Lance took off his helmet and threw it across the opening of the woods, hearing it thump against the trunk of a tree right before he let out a blood curdling yell that could be heard from a mile away. Keith was gone forever. The love of his life, his whole world, was never going to get to smile again, laugh again, cry again, fight again, or love again. He was never going to get to talk to him again… Letting that sink in, Lance started crying loud enough for everyone in Voltron to hear and follow his sounds by. He didn’t stop crying even when daylight came and team Voltron finally found him. 

They came up upon the scene, the first thing they were noticing besides the sobbing and screaming Lance holding Keith’s body was the amount of blood everywhere. It was clear what had happened. Keith didn’t make it. 

Shiro was the first to react, whispering out a silent, “No…” before running over to Keith’s body and trying to communicate with Lance, “When did he die? Are you sure he is dead?” He never got answers out of Lance, but it was obvious what the answers were.

Pidge and Coran were second to react, running over to the babies and picking them up to check what their status was. Pidge held one girl and one boy in her hands while Coran held the other two. Coran smiled and looked to Allura, “These two are alive. We should cut their umbilical cord and get them to the ship immediately.”

Allura turned to Pidge for a report as well. Pidge looked down at both of the babies in her hands before looking up at Allura and muttering out quiet enough so Lance couldn’t hear, “One of them is dead.”

Allura put her hand to her heart and nodded her head, looking over at Keith and Lance. She bit her lip and muttered out, “Hunk, cut the umbilical cords and clip them up so you, Coran, and Pidge can take the babies back to the ship.”

     “Princess, will you also be joining us?” Coran asked, looking down at the babies in his hand that were just barely alive from the night they had to spend out in the woods. 

Allura shook her head and stepped forward towards Shiro, Keith, and Lance, “I have business here.”

When Allura crouched down beside Shiro, Lance finally looked up at the both of them with a glare as he grit his teeth and shouted out, “Where were you?! I was calling you guys all night long, and you only managed to come find us now? Keith is dead!” he started sobbing louder than his words now, becoming incomprehensible as he kept shouting at them. 

Shiro could only manage to apologize over and over again to both Keith and Lance, crying as well. Allura stayed silent. She held Shiro’s hand and muttered to him, “The aliens we met… they said they have the power to bring people back from the dead.”

Shiro sniffled and looked up at Allura with wide eyes, “We… We can’t bring Keith back. I want that so much, but that isn’t righ-!”

     “Let’s do it,” Lance demanded, cutting Shiro off. “I have the biggest say in this, and I’m going to get Keith back - even if I have to use quintessence to bring him back.”

     “Lance!” Allura scolded him. “You will not use quintessence!”

Lance bit his lip and looked at both her and Shiro with so much anger in his eyes, “Keith is dead because you guys failed to get to us in time. If he stays dead, you are going to have to deal with something a whole lote worse than Zarkon ever was.”

     “Lance-!” Allura tried to cut him off, but he kept speaking over her.

     “Let me rephrase myself,” he looked down to Keith once more and brushed his black hair out of his face with his fingers. “If I don’t get Keith back, I’m going to make all of you feel the same pain I’m feeling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!
> 
> I was dying laughing all week because you guys were so paranoid. I guess for a good reason though?? Don't worry because there will be one last chapter next week and I never like to end on a bad note. I loved all of your guesses and most of you were technically right about the triplets. Thank you so much for all of your comments because they mean the world to me! You guys are the best readers ever.


	10. A big happy family

A Big Happy Family

Six hours had gone by since Lance carried Keith to the ship and laid him down on a bed that would hold him until the group decided on what to do with him. Everyone was now aware of the threat Lance brought to the table, trying hard to convince him that this was just grief talking and things would get better though everyone knew their efforts would be hopeless. Lance wasn’t going to accept Keith being dead until he attempted to use even quintessence to bring him back. That was the worst case scenario though. 

     “Lance, Keith was a great guy, I know. He was like family to me too, but-!” Hunk attempted his hand at convincing Lance to let this whole ‘bringing Keith back from the dead thing’ go, but Lance suddenly pushed him away from him and shouted out, “Why are you talk about him like he is already in the past?! He is right here!” Lance gestured to Keith laying on the bed in the room. “He just died, and you are already talking about him like he is just a memory!”

Allura stepped forward and put a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “Lance, please, it is time you realize Keith has died and cannot come back.”

     “Now you are giving up on the idea of bringing him back, too?!” Lance shouted, his chest heaving up and down as he glared at everyone in the room. He continued to shout, “Y-You guys are trying to act like you can sympathize with me, saying Keith was ‘like’ your family too, Keith was a great guy, Keith would have wanted me to move on - Well you can shut the fuck up because he isn’t just ‘like’ family to me, he is my family! We are a family together, and without him, I have nothing!”

     “You have the twins,” Matt spoke up, knowing that his comment was going to gain some backlash from Lance. Pidge joined him though, saying, “Yeah, and now you have triplets to take care of! That’s a lot of family.”

Lance shut his eyes as his hands trembled and curled up into fists, “I will personally take an escape pod out to that planet to get them to bring Keith back to life. You guys can watch the kids while I go, but you aren’t talking me out of it.”

     “But each day takes a month! What if this takes twelve days for you and you are gone a year for us? For the kids? Do you really want to miss out on a whole year of your kids lives or even the first few months of the triplets’ lives?” Allura argued with Lance, but Lance wasn’t in the mood to argue. He wasn’t even in the mood to talk anymore.

Without thinking, he stepped forward and shouted out, “Then I’ll take the kids with me too! At least they want their dad back just as much as I do, so it will be fine! Just get out of here before I lose it on you and do something I regret.”

     “Lance, that is no way to talk to Allura!” Shiro snapped at Lance, stepping protectively in front of Allura. 

Allura only closed her eyes though and stepped out from behind Shiro, “It’s fine, it’s understandable. He lost his husband and the father of his children. He just needs to have time to himself and think about what he is saying and doing.”

     “I’m not going to think about anything until he’s back!” Lance teared up, starting to step back. “You know what? I want you out! I want you all out of here! And I want my kids in the room with me. Tomorrow we are going to that planet either with the aid of the castle or riding the blue lion by ourselves.”

     “You can’t take the blue-!” Allura tried to argue, but Lance cut her off again with a scream, “I said get the fuck out!”

Shiro wrapped his arm around Allura and glared at Lance, “Lance we are all hurting right now. You have no right to talk to us like that.”

He and Allura started to leave, as Lance shouted back out to them, controlled only by pure anger and sorrow, “I have every right to talk to you guys like this because I’m the only one that cares about him being dead!”

His shout was followed by the door slamming before Shiro and Allura were gone and he was alone in the room with Keith and Hunk now. Pidge and Coran had left and were now working to incubate the babies and make sure they were healthy while Shay and Matt were watching Cora, Kashi, and the rest of the kids that had no idea what was going on yet.

     “Go get Kashi and Cora and bring them here,” Lance muttered out to Hunk, walking over to Keith to sit by him again. 

     “Lance, I don’t think that is a good idea,” Hunk tried to say, knowing that he was treading on thin ice, but he had to take advantage of the fact that he was on ice at all. “You aren’t in a good state of mind for them to be in the presence of, and they shouldn’t find out that… that their dad is dead this way with you like this.”

Lance turned to Hunk with a glare, “I’m not going to be any other way until I see them. They need to know that Keith is dead and you guys are keeping him from being alive again.”

     “Lance, please, they are just kids!” Hunk raised his voice, “Don’t drag them into whatever you are trying to do to make us feel guilty. They probably don’t even understand death yet and they are going to experience it second hand with their own dad! Don’t you understand how terrible that is?”

     “They wouldn’t have to experience it at all if you guys would agree to bring Keith back!” Lance snapped at Hunk, “I’m going to get my kids myself if you don’t do it, so don’t think you are making a difference by refusing to go get them for me.”

Hunk sighed and started to walk out of the room, “I’ll go get them. Just think about how you are going to tell them. Please, please, be careful with how you do it.”

Lance’s eyes narrowed and he ignored Hunk’s advice, only caring about his plan to bring Keith back now. He sat down next to the bed Keith was laying on and rested his head next to Keith’s, holding his hand and muttering out to him after Hunk left the room, “I’m going to get you back. I’m so angry that everyone is already giving up on you, but you aren’t allowed to leave me yet.”

There was silence. 

Of course there was never going to be a reply, but he still hoped there would be some kind of miracle that would make Keith suddenly wake up and be alive again. He hoped that Keith would wrap his fingers around his hand and open his eyes as if he had only been sleeping this whole time. He would have no memory of the fact that he even died, but he would remember giving birth. He would ask where the quadruplets were and Lance would be able to hand them to him, finally happy with the big family they were getting to have. 

But no, there was only silence. 

Lance started crying again, first his cries only coming out in short and quiet breaths but then turning into loud sobs and desperate tries for air. He wrapped his arm around Keith and rested his face against his cheek, crying out over and over again, “I can’t do anything with you! I-I don’t know how. How am I supposed to live without you? How am I even supposed to tell the kids that this is h-happening? I-I’m so alone right now… They aren’t even going to understand…”

He sniffled and went quiet when he heard the door open and close and the sound of Cora’s voice sing out through the room, “Papa, you’re back! Did you get daddy?”

Lance shut his eyes and turned away from them, wiping his eyes and mentally telling himself to stay strong for them. He stood up and turned around to them, putting on a smile and bending down to their level so they could hop up into his arms, “Hey! Daddy is sleeping right now, but he is here… I just wanted to see you guys right now because I missed you.”

He looked up at Hunk who was standing by the door, frowning and glaring at him because he was angry he was following Hunk’s advice and proving him right on what the right thing to do was. He looked back to Kashi and Cora and sniffled, smiling again though as he spoke to them, “Have you seen your siblings yet? Can you believe you have four of them now?”

     “Four?!” Kashi gasped, “Boys?”

     “Girls!” Cora huffed. 

Lance let out a forced laughed and hugged them both, “Two boys and two girls! We can go see them soon if you want?”

     “Can we see daddy first?” Kashi asked, smiling innocently. Lance envied his ignorance. 

Lance sniffled and looked to Hunk again, “Well, uh… Kashi, we can’t see him right now, ok? He’s resting.”

     “But I want to see him!” Kashi started to throw a fit, impatient to see his dad he hadn’t gotten to see for two whole weeks. “Daddy can sleep later! I wanna say hi to him!”

     “Me too,” Cora joined in on the whining. 

Lance thought he could deal with this until Kashi started crying. It wasn’t unusual for Kashi to cry when he was separated from Keith for so long, but Lance was already feeling too much guilt to deal with it right now. He couldn’t keep them in the dark about this forever. He had to tell them what was going on. 

     “Guys…” he interrupted their crying, and sat them down in front of him. “I have something to tell you about,” his voice cracked and he started to cry again, not caring that he was breaking down in front of them. He swallowed his spit and continued in a weaker voice, “I have something to tell you about daddy.”

Kashi tilted his head in confusion, suddenly not crying anymore though, “Can we see him now?”

Lance shook his head and held both Kashi and Cora’s hands, “You can see him, but he… he’s not with us anymore...”

     “What do you mean?” Cora asked, looking around for Keith. “You said he was sleeping.”

Lance nodded, “Because I… I wasn’t sure how to tell you,” he broke into a sob and took his hands back to cover up his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, you two. I couldn’t save daddy when he gave birth and he didn’t make it. He’s not with us anymore because he is dead.”

     “Dead?” Kashi’s eyes widened. “Like the baby he had in his tummy last year?”

     “Yeah,” Lance looked up at the bed Keith was on. “I’m trying to get him back though, ok?”

Kashi started to cry again along with Cora, both of them barely grasping what was going on except for the fact that it wasn’t good. All they could think about was the fact that they weren’t going to see him again. Lance looked to Hunk with tears in his eyes, “I want to see the quadruplets.”

Hunk clenched his teeth and shook his head slowly, “Uh, Lance, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

     “Why not?” Lance stood up, holding Kashi and Cora in his arms now and walking over to the door. “I’m not going to stay in this room and ignore the fact that I have four kids in a different room who need me.”

Hunk blocked the exit momentarily before realizing how suspicious that action looked. He put his hand on Lance’s shoulder and said in as calm of a tone as he could pull off, “You should worry about Kashi and Cora for now, right? Plus, Pidge and Coran are still working to make sure the babies are safe. They’ll come get you when they are fine.”

Lance bit his lip, “All of them are alive right?”

     “Uh…” Hunk couldn’t lie. He was a terrible liar and he just really didn’t want to lie to his best friend. 

Lance knew what his lack of an answer meant though. Lance shut his eyes tight and looked down, trying not to completely lose it on his situation right now. He sucked in a long breath and slowly let it out along with his question, “How many didn’t make it and which ones?”

Hunk ran his fingers through his hair, hating the fact that he was doing such a terrible job of keeping Lance ignorant of what was going on right now with his own kids. He answered anyways though since Lance had already guessed it, “One was dead when we got to you guys. It was a boy and he was the smallest of the four.”

     “He was the last one Keith gave birth to…” Lance nodded his head to himself, setting Kashi and Cora down on the ground even though they were still crying and reaching for him to hold them again. He couldn’t do anything right now. 

He put his palm up to his forehead as tears filled his eyes again, “What did I do to deserve this? What have I done to deserve so many of my kids dying, my husband dying, and you guys not letting me bring him back? I thought saving the Universe would earn me good karma, but all I’ve gotten is shit! My whole life is shit now!”

     “Lance, be thankful for what you have!” Hunk tried to argue, stepping forward and grabbing him by his shoulders so he didn’t run off and do something stupid. “You have two amazing kids and now you have triplets to take care of! Isn’t that great?”

     “I always said that to Keith when we lost a kid or he wanted to try for another, and now I understand why he always got so fucking angry at me when I said it,” Lance muttered to himself, pushing himself away from Hunk and walking back slowly. He suddenly stopped in his place and shouted out at him, “Keith mattered to me more than any kid inside of him did! I only cared about his survival, and he ended up dying! There is nothing to be happy about anymore if he is not here! I don’t want to be here if he is not here!”

Hunk stepped around Kashi and Cora and grabbed Lance again, growling out to him in a low voice, “Stop speaking like that in front of your kids. They have enough to cry about right now to have their father yelling about how he can’t live anymore and how his life is shit even though they are right there! Lance, I’m really sorry about Keith dying, but you need to think about your kids and what Keith would want you to do, because I’m sure it’s not this.”

Lance looked to Keith once more, his lips trembling and his hands shaking as he turned back to Hunk and croaked out, “He wanted me to pretend he was on a mission. He didn’t even want me to accept the fact that he died because he knew I wasn’t strong enough to do that… I need to bring him back, Hunk, I….” Lance let his head fall onto Hunk’s shoulder as he started crying again, not stopping until his body couldn’t produce anymore tears. 

Even when he couldn’t cry, he still held on to Hunk, shaking and asking him over and over again why everything was happening. Hunk never said anything except for words of reassurances, rocking Lance until he fell asleep in his arms and was finally silenced for the first time since Keith’s death. 

Hunk carried Lance to bed in a different room, coming back to the room Keith was in to pick up Cora and Kashi who were asleep on the ground after crying their eyes out as well. He tucked them into the same bed as Lance, hoping that putting them together would help them cope through the night until Shiro and Allura came to a decision on what they were going to do with Keith. 

The next morning, Lance woke up to Cora and Kashi holding onto both sides of his chest in their sleep, using his arms as pillows for their heads. He smiled and looked to his side for Keith until he realized once more that Keith was dead. He bit his lip and looked up at the ceiling of the room, trying to figure out if everything that happened yesterday was real or fake. The heavy feeling in his heart and the tear stains still on his cheek told him this nightmare was continuing. 

He shifted Kashi and Cora carefully onto one side of the bed so he could get up without waking them. He could barely deal with his own emotions right now; he couldn’t deal with their emotions too. What he wanted to do right now was see the triplets. 

The castle was still dark, but he could tell it was early in the morning rather than in the middle of the night, so he made his way to where Hunk mentioned the babies were. He entered the room to find it empty of anyone still working on the health of the babies thankfully. He didn’t feel like dealing with anyone except for an alive Keith right now. 

He guessed that all three babies had to be put in incubators, so he walked over to the three that were on one side of the room together in a row, looking in to see that all three of his babies were perfectly healthy and big enough to survive without one. Coran and Pidge probably just put them in the incubators once they were in the clear since there wasn’t any cribs to put them in. 

One of them was awake while the other two were asleep. It was the boy Lance remembered that was laughing instead of crying when he came out. He smiled and opened up the incubator to pick him up and hold him, rocking him in his arms a bit as he tried to remember the name Keith said he wanted for him. He was pretty sure one of the boy names was Dylan, so he went with that, too tired to try to think of the other name. 

     “Hey Dylan…” he spoke softly to the baby, petting the boy’s light brown hair and admiring his eyes that were definitely taken from Keith and a toothless smile he still had on his face as he looked up at his father. 

Lance looked over at his two daughters that were still sleeping, muttering to himself with a smile still on his face, “I guess one of you is named Ella and the other is Lyra. Whichever one of you wakes up first is the one that gets the name Ella, how about that?”

He turned back to Dylan and smiled, “You are one happy baby aren’t you? You would have been your dad’s secret favorite, I’m sure. He would have been your favorite dad too,” he sat down and rocked Dylan more, having no desire to do anything but sit there and take in this long awaited moment. He continued to talk to him, finding it nice to talk to someone who only responded to him with a light giggle and a smile as a reaction to no matter what he said, “Your dad is with your younger brother right now. He’s also probably with your older brother too that didn’t make it last year… and another brother and sister we could have had a long time ago, but bad things happened.”

Lance bit his lip, not wanting to cause himself to cry but any attempt not to wasn’t going to work, “He was so excited when he found out he was pregnant for the very first time… It destroyed him when we lost Juliet. Both of us lost it though when we lost Steven. We thought it was crazy to lose a second child, but we had no idea what was coming. The twins happened of course. You will love them when you meet them. I guess we wouldn’t have ended up having them if everything bad didn’t happen before them.”

Dylan let out a cute laugh that made Lance feel like his heart was melting with a welcoming warmth. He tilted his head and held Dylan’s hand with his thumb and pointer finger, laughing and muttering out to himself, “Maybe you might just be my secret favorite.”

The door opened up to the room he was in and Pidge walked in, eyes widening when she saw him and then Dylan in her hand, “I see gremlin number three is awake! How are you doing?”

Lance shrugged, chewing on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying or saying something mean, “Keith named the triplets before he… but he didn’t say which one got which name, so I was just trying to decide which girl got which name.”

     “Names?” Pidge grinned, “That’s so exciting! What are they?”

     “Well,” Lance looked down at Dylan, “Gremling number three is Dylan. Keith likes it cause it has something to do with water. Whichever girl wakes up first is going to get to be called Ella after Cinderella which is Cora and Kashi’s favorite bedtime story. The second girl that wakes up is going to be called Lyra after the constellation we looked at on our first date.”

Pidge put her hands to her face, “Awe, I love those names so much! Keith did a good job.”

     “He did…” Lance smiled, playing with Dylan’s tiny hands as they desperately grasped for his fingers. 

     “Oh, before I forget. Allura and Shiro asked me to come find you; they have something important to tell you,” Pidge said, keeping a smile on her face in hopes that Lance will start to smile if she kept doing it.

Lance rolled his eyes though and answered irritatedly, “If it is about me not being able to bring Keith back, tell them they are dead to me and I’m not listening to them.”

Pidge cringed a bit and held her hands together in front of her, “It’s actually uh… well I didn’t want to ruin the somewhat surprise for you, but we are here at the planet where everyday is a month. They decided last night that Keith was still needed here and started traveling towards the planet immediately after since we don’t have any time to lose with Keith’s dead body. They just got finished meeting with the leader of the planet and bringing someone back from the dead is something that can be done.”

     “It can be?” Lance confirmed that he was hearing everything right. 

Pidge nodded her head, “Allura and Shiro already brought Keith out to the healers. They only wanted me to come find you when they started the healing process and were sure they could bring Keith back, and well… the healers are almost done.”

Lance stood up quickly and set Dylan down in his incubator, “Can I go to him now? Do you think he is alive yet?”

     “Maybe, but they said he won’t wake up immediately. He may still be unconscious, but you know… alive,” Pidge smiled, eyes full of hope. 

Lance felt his heart beating against his chest, his eyes widening as he grinned and nodded his head, “That is all I need right now. I’m going to be there when he wakes up, so I should hurry!”

He ran out of the room to search for Allura and Shiro, checking the control room for them as his first guess of where they were. He found them in there with Allura holding their daughter and Shiro playing peek-a-boo with her until he heard the door open and jumped in front of Allura instinctively. Lance remembered when he was like that with Keith, Cora, and Kashi. He would grab the nearest weapon-like item possible to protect them at even the smallest noise. After being on Earth for a while though, he stopped being so protective… He regretted ever letting his guard down. 

Shiro relaxed when he saw it was Lance, letting his glowing hand fall to his side as he smiled and asked, “Did Pidge tell you what was going on? Last night we decided that it really wouldn’t be acceptable to just go on and not at least try to bring Keith back. He would make sure the same thing happened to all of us if one of us died.”

     “Definitely,” Lance agreed, looking out the control room window at the planet they had landed on. 

Allura and Shiro made brief eye contact before Allura went on and said, “Well, I’m sure you want to go see Keith. They should be done by now, so Shiro, can take you to him and bring him back here when he wakes up?”

Lance smiled and already started walking back towards the exit so they could leave and see an alive Keith again, “Thank you so much you guys.”

     “We may not come close to caring and loving Keith as much as you do, but we still do love and care about him so much. Please remember that,” Allura said with a smile, watching as Shiro and Lance left in a hurry to go see Keith. 

Lance ran out of the castle through the exit doors since they had landed on the planet, not wasting any time to run towards the city. Shiro eventually ran past Lance so he could lead him to the specific small wooden building Keith was being revived in. After five minutes of non-stop running as fast as they could, they finally came to the small house-like building, breathless and anxious to see what they would find within it. 

     “The place is small, but the healers are powerful,” Shiro regurgitated facts he was told to Lance as they walked up to the door. “Keith is in the back room on a table unless he is up and walking around. I think we’d be hearing a bit more of a commotion though if he was awake.”

Lance nodded his head, “I just need him alive when I see him again.”

     “Same here,” Shiro agreed, opening the door and walking inside to the quaint house that smelled like vanilla and incense. Lance had to take a moment to get over how good it smelled before getting serious again on finding Keith. 

     “Hello?” Shiro called out to the house, his voice sounding stale as the sound bounced off the wooden boards of the walls. “We are here to check on Keith.”

Lance looked around at pictures and paintings scattered around the room. The aliens looked like upside down dandelion seeds, their bodies long with multiple legs and arms sticking out along the sides of their abdomen and their heads circle shamed like the main part of the seed. One dandelion seed alien poked his head out from a room with a previous closed door and spoke in a high pitched voice and an accent that made his words hard to understand. Lance knew exactly what his words were though, “He’s alive.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he stepped forward slowly, “Can we… Can we see him?” 

The alien nodded his head, “You came at the right time. He is showing signs of waking up soon.”

Lance was already tearing up, looking back at Shiro and smiling as he walked towards the alien and followed him into the room. Shiro followed behind, promising himself that he wasn’t going to cry when it was Lance and Keith’s moment, but he didn’t know how loyal he could stay to that promise. 

He watched as Lance pulled up a chair to Keith’s bedside and quickly sat down in it, leaning forward and checking Keith’s pulse before grinning and looking up at Shiro, “He really is alive!”

Tears were falling down his face as he reached under the thin sheets covering Keith’s chest and down to take his hand and hold it. He brought Keith’s hand up to his cheek and felt how warm they were. It felt like a lifetime since he felt something in Keith’s body besides coldness and emptiness.

     “I’m never going to let him be alone again,” Lance declared. “When we get back to Earth, we are homeschooling the kids and never leaving the house. And he’s also not going to get pregnant again.”

     “I hope not,” Shiro laughed under his breath. “Five kids is going to be hard to handle… Are you sure you want to go back to Earth?”

     “What do you mean?” Lance tilted his head in curiosity as to why Shiro was asking that. 

Shiro looked down and bit his lip, “Well, we attacked the Garrison. We didn’t defeat them, and they will be after you. Do you really want to go back to Earth with your family to the Garrison’s lion den? They probably already have the whole town guarded.”

     “But where else could we go? I don’t exactly want to live on an alien planet and raise my kids in a place where no one looks remotely like them,” Lance argued, looking down at Keith briefly to check if he was awake or not. 

     “Why don’t you stay with Voltron? We are never attacked anymore, you and Keith could get back to doing fun missions when you need a break from the kids, and you have lots of help when you need it from the rest of us,” Shiro tried to convince Lance, not to sure about that last part though. He was willing to help Lance and Keith out with their twins and triplets, but handle one baby was hard enough for both him and Allura at the moment. Did he really have time to help out with five more kids?

Lance knew keeping that promise was hard too, laughing and shaking his head, “Not even an army could successfully take care of five kids on their own. I don’t know how we are going to do it, but we are going to somehow… And as for staying with you guys, I… I don’t know, I’ll have to talk about it with Keith. We counted down the days to get away from it when we had the twins, and Earth was great while it was safe, but with the Garrison looking for us and wanting us dead, I’m not sure where is even safe for us anymore.”

    “Here with Voltron,” Shiro answered. “There isn’t a war going on, and Cora and Kashi will feel right at home. I’m sure the triplets will too.”

     “But my family…” Lance bit his lip and looked down. “I just realized it’s been a month since they last saw me now that we have been on this planet for a day. They must be so worried.”

Shiro nodded his head in understanding, “Let’s not worry about it for now. We’ll think of something.”

Lance looked back to Keith, “I just need to let them know I’m alive. Then I can leave again. I’m willing to give up seeing them completely if it is for the safety of Keith, the twins, and the triplets now.”

Keith’s hand twitched and Lance gripped onto it, “He’s waking up!”

Shiro stayed where he was, wanting to let Lance be the first to have a moment with Keith before he intervened. They would have to rush out of there anyway, since they literally couldn’t have anymore time to lose in this pocket of time in space. 

Lance looked down at Keith as Keith’s eyes fluttered open and looked up at him. Lance grinned and watched as Keith’s expression was first empty. He then watched as Keith’s lips parted and his eyebrows furrowed a bit in confusion as he tried to figure out what was going on. After a few seconds of Keith just staring at Lance with an almost blank but still confused expression, Keith finally spoke, “Did you… Did you die too?”

Keith took his hand away from Lance’s and trailed over to his stomach to feel it, grasping for a baby bump that could hold quadruplets but only finding loose skin and no sense of pregnancy at all. Keith shook his head and looked to Lance again, “Tell me you didn’t kill yourself.”

Lance shook his head, not knowing what to say but still wearing a stupid grin on his face as tears fell down his eyes, “No, I’m alive. You’re alive.”

Keith looked up at the ceiling once more, still unsure of what to think of the situation, “...And the babies?”

     “They are fine,” Lance couldn’t take the space between them any longer and picked up Keith’s upper body to hold him in his arms, hugging Keith tightly as he continued to speak, “We are all alright now, ok? You died, but we brought you back. We need you too much here.”

     “You… You brought me back?” Keith breathed out, slowly bringing his arms up to Lance to hug him. “How long have I been dead? I thought I just died a moment ago, but… have I been dead longer than that?”

Lance sniffled and nodded his head, “Almost two whole days…”

Keith let his head fall into the nook of Lance’s neck. He smiled and embraced Lance, still feeling confused on how just a moment ago he had given birth to quadruplets in the woods and was now being held by Lance in a house while being told he had been dead for two days. It was crazy to wake up to that. 

     “I love you so much,” Keith smiled though he was still confused, closing his eyes and taking in the scent of Lance that he might not have ever been able to smell again if Lance wasn’t the most stubborn person in the universe to refuse to let him even die. 

Lance held onto Keith tighter, “I love you too… You have no idea how much losing you tore me apart. You know I’m not going to let you leave my sights ever again, right?”

Keith laughed under his breath and sat up a bit more, “I’m not even going to try to argue with that. I’m never going to let you go either….”

Shiro coughed from where he was, smiling but still worried about how much time they were spending on the planet, “Keith it’s great to have you back, but we are going to have to get you back to the castle quickly so we aren’t on the planet where everyday is a month any longer.”

     “We are on that planet?” Keith’s eyes widened and he turned to Lance. “Please tell me the babies are with us here and we didn’t miss a month of their life, right?”

     “They are with us,” Lance smiled and helped Keith up when Keith tried to get up on his own. 

Keith held onto Lance, “I need to see them right now.”

The sheets slipped from his body when he got up and he looked down to see he wasn’t wearing anything. He looked back up at Lance, his face growing red as he bit his lip and muttered out, “Do you have any clothes I can wear?”

Lance glanced at Shiro before his eyes widened and he shook his head awkwardly, “I… I didn’t even think about clothes. Shiro?”

Shiro shook his head, “Yeah, that slipped my mind too.”

     “Well looks like you will be wearing my clothes,” Lance started taking off his shirt and jacket.

Keith took his clothes quickly and put them on, not wanting to show the aftermath of his stomach that held quadruplets to Lance any longer. His skin was loose and he had stretch marks placed across his skin. He knew his stomach would go back to normal with work just like it did with the twins, but for now, he didn’t want anyone to look at it until it was better. 

Lance kissed Keith on the cheek again, unable to keep himself from him for longer than a few seconds. He started to take off his pants as well, but Keith stopped him and wrapped the thin sheet he previously had on top of him around his waist, “I’ll be fine with just this. You need something on you when we go back to the castle.” He laughed a little and kissed Lance again, “Let's go see our kids.”

Shiro led them both back to the ship, Keith and Lance holding onto each other as if there was a danger that could separate them again. There may not have been, but they weren’t going to take any chances. 

When they got back to the castle, Keith was wrapped up by the rest of team Voltron in a group hug. He smiled and hugged them all, happy to see them all again after they had been gone for so long. He only heard them over the intercom the last time he was conscience and he hadn’t seen them since he first found out he was pregnant with the quadruplets. The people he was most excited to have run up to him and hug him though were Kashi and Cora, tears in their eyes as they crashed into Keith and held onto him. 

     “Papa told us you died!” Kashi yelled out, sobbing and holding Keith. 

Keith turned to Lance, “You didn’t tell them I was on a mission? That would have been so much easier.”

     “It’s harder than you think to lie to them about where you were when they knew your body was lifeless on the bed,” Lance explained, watching as Keith picked up both of the kids and held them.

He kissed them both on their foreheads, “Hey, you know I couldn’t stay away from you two for long! I missed you way too much.”

     “We missed you too,” Cora sniffled and kissed Keith on the cheek, hugging his neck tightly. 

Kashi was doing the same and probably would have said a lot more too if he wasn’t sobbing into Keith’s hair. Lance joined in on the family hug too, wrapping his arms around Keith’s waist and nuzzling his head into his neck as he said, “As you can tell, I did a terrible job as a single parent.”

Keith laughed, “I’ll have to make sure you never get the chance to be one again then.”

He turned and kissed Lance, “Where are the other four?”

Everyone suddenly looked to Lance, eyes wide with both confusion on why he didn’t tell Keith about the dead baby yet and worry for how Keith will react to that news. Lance made a motion to everyone to stay quiet about it for now, looking to Keith when Keith spoke again, “Did you name them already?”

Lance nodded his head quickly, “All the names you picked out of course. I’ll show you to them,” he took Kashi and Cora from Keith’s arms and handed them to Coran, “Hey, can you watch the twins for a moment?... I’ll… I’ll take him to see them alone.”

Coran nodded his head in understanding, “Alright. You can meet all of us in the dining room since all of the kids want food, and I’m sure Keith is hungry too.”

     “Thank you,” Lance tried to smile, too afraid of what Keith’s reaction to the fourth baby being dead will be to really think about food right now. 

He turned away from Coran and started to lead Keith towards the clinic where the babies were. When they walked inside, a surge of energy ran through Keith and he quickly walked over to the three incubators, looking over through the glass at the babies, “They are so beautiful!” He looked down at a sticky note on one of the incubators and read the words out loud, “Ella - This one ended up waking up first, Pidge?”

He turned to Lance and raised an eyebrow, “You did a race for who would wake up first and whoever won got the name Ella?”

Lance shied away a bit, afraid Keith hated the idea. He relaxed though when Keith laughed and turned back to Ella, “That is a great idea! What did you do for the boys?”

That was when Lance went completely silent again. He looked over at Dylan who was finally asleep unlike his two sisters who were now awake. How was Lance going to tell Keith that the youngest one that was supposed to be named Aiden was dead? 

Lance watched as Keith looked past Dylan for Aiden, then looking around the room for an incubator that could be where his fourth baby was being held. Keith spun a whole circle before turning to Lance with a smile that was slowly fading until it turned in a knowing look. He lowered his head a bit and stepped forward, “The fourth one is dead, isn’t he?”

Lance looked down, thinking of what to say. What could he say to that? Yeah? You guessed right? Sorry, I didn’t focus on the kids when you died? Lance opened his mouth to just mutter out a confirmation of Aiden’s death, but before he could say anything, Keith put his hand on Lance’s shoulder and smiled, “He was too small. I knew he was going to die the moment I saw him, but he has three siblings keeping him company wherever he is right now. Let’s not fret over this when we have five kids to take care of now, ok?” He kissed Lance’s forehead, “What is that saying you always love to say to me when I’m feeling sad about what we’ve lost?”

     “Be happy with what we have,” Lance smiled, wrapping his arms around Keith and pulling him closer. “As long as I have you, I am.”

Keith and Lance later made the decision that staying with the team in the castle was best for their safety for the time being, not wanting to worry about their lives on top of taking care of five babies including baby triplets. They quickly went down to Earth in the green lion so they were invisible and said goodbye to Lance’s family before telling them that they were going to live in space for a bit since they were going to be killed if they stayed on Earth at the moment. His family was sad, but they understood, letting him leave on the condition that he would visit as much as possible so they could at least watch the triplets grow up. 

In the castle, Keith and Lance really did get help from the rest of the team with taking care of their kids though they did fine enough on their own. Shiro started to teach Kashi and Cora how to defend themselves now they were living in space and Allura taught them about the galaxy they were traveling around in. Hunk and Lance would play soccer with Cora around the ship, and when Coran eventually learned how to play, he would join them and they would all play two on two together. 

Keith, Shay, and Allura took care of the five babies on the ship most of the time with Keith juggling around triplets and Shay and Allura taking care of their own babies that were growing more and more energetic by the day. They did help Keith out though with one or two of the triplets at a time, but he knew what he was doing more than both of them combined, having dealt with twins already before.

Pidge and Matt decided to stay on Earth mainly, but when Lance, Keith, and the kids came to visit Lance’s family, Pidge and Matt would travel around with the team for a while just to get a sense of old times before going back to their regular life. It was a happy medium they found, but when they were in the castle, they were used to the advantage of everyone on the ship to take care of the kids. They loved Cora and Kashi the most so they couldn’t complain, but the other kids were growing on them too. It was fun for seven kids to look up to him. 

A year had passed and the triplets were now a year old. Keith and Lance had a birthday party for them, though the triplets were confused as to what was going on while wearing their pointy party hats, and Kashi and Cora ate all of the cake and unwrapped all of the presents ‘for the triplets’. 

Kashi and Cora were five years old now too, old enough to go to bed on their own, fix their own food to eat, and entertain themselves. They still chose to pester either Keith and Lance, Allura and Shiro, or Coran until they did all of those things for them. Keith and Lance always made it a teaching moment to make them help themselves, Allura and Shiro sometimes did what they wanted but also had their own kid to take care of, and Coran… well… Coran always caved in. How could he say no to his favorite two kids on the ship? He always fixed the best snacks, played the most fun games, and told the best bedtime stories anyway. 

One night when Cora was raked into telling the twins a bedtime story before they went to bed, Keith and Lance went to go put the triplets down to sleep as well, tired themselves from the long day of taking care of kids and visiting a planet that was having problems with space pirates. 

Keith laid Dylan down in his crib since he was already sleeping and was handed Ella by Lance who was still trying to rock Lyra to sleep in his arms, “Do you remember when Kashi and Cora were this small?”

Keith laughed a little and nodded his head, “The two of them were more of a handful separated than these three combined.”

Ella slowly started to fall asleep, relaxing in Keith’s arms easily. When her eyes were closed and she was officially asleep, Keith laid her down in her crib and sat down on the chair in the nursery they had made and decorated for the triplets when they decided to move into the castle. He watched as Lance rubbed his thumb lightly across Lyra’s forehead and played with her fingers when he reached up for his hand. 

      “You know, she’ll fall asleep easier if you don’t rile her up in a game,” Keith reprimanded, unable to hold himself back from smiling though as he watched on. 

Lance shrugged and grinned, “She’ll fall asleep no matter what, won’t you sleepy head? She’s just like her daddy.”

     “Hey, I don’t fall asleep so easily!” Keith squeaked out, thinking up a million excuses as to why he fell asleep so early nowadays. Almost all of them ended in blaming the amount of effort it took to take care of all of the kids even with Lance’s help, so Keith stayed quiet, never wanting to hear himself complain about what he worked so hard to get. 

Lance leaned over to him and kissed him on the cheek, “Fine, fine, you are a night owl. I’m going to sing Lyra, but you can go ahead on to bed if you want.”

     “And miss out on hearing your beautiful lullaby?” Keith smiled and leaned back in his chair, “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

Lance’s face turned a shade of red and he nodded his head, a grin spreading across his face as he looked back down at Lyra, “Ok. Here it goes then,” he glanced up at Keith again and began to sing. 

     ‘Follow the path… To where no one’s ever been… Don’t turn around, until you reach the end. Across the sea… And beyond the distant lands… The world awaits, so don’t make any plans. There you go...’

Lyra fell asleep. 

Lance laid her down in her crib gently but continued to sing when he noticed Keith starting to drift off, ‘When every step takes you a thousand miles away… You’ll find the edge beyond the break of day… And leave behind everything you’ve ever had…”

He picked Keith up from the chair when Keith was officially asleep too, holding him close and nuzzling his head into his neck as he brought him out of the nursery and started walking towards their bedroom. When he got to their bedroom, he laid Keith down on the bed and laid next to him, relaxing and pulling him close once more so he could fall asleep with the one he loved most in his arms. 

There they were, right back where they started. They were in the same room Lance had when he was first just learning how to be the blue paladin of voltron. This room had become a room he and Keith sneaked off to when they wanted alone time when they first got together, a room where they tried for their first baby, a room where they accidentally conceived the twins, and a room now where they slept in and escaped to to get alone time away from the kids they had now. 

Lance wasn’t complaining though. How could he complain when this was all he ever wanted? Keith was alive. He had five kids that were beautiful and healthy. He and Keith had the big happy family they always wanted, and there was nothing else to ask for now. 

Nothing could beat the life he had now. 

He and Keith were happy with what they had. There was no more trying for anything more, because they already had all they needed. A big happy family. And happy they were, indeed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end!   
> The song lyrics used for Lance's lullaby are from the song Andrew's song - from End of Silence  
> This was fun and I'm so sad it's over! You guys were such great readers, and I loved all of your comments so much. I'm glad you all enjoyed my story and your reactions to everything really inspired me to write even more!  
> Bye!

**Author's Note:**

> Comment for next chapter!


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